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HOUSTON—Houston employers are starting to add more jobs outside of the energy industry, but it has yet to affect the metro's apartment market, according to Axiometrics, the apartment and student housing number cruncher. Even though 19,600 Houston-area jobs were created in the 12 months ending in August, annual effective rent growth continued to slide, reaching -3.1% in September, as compared to 2.6% for the national effective rent growth.
“Job gains may be picking up month-over-month, but they are nowhere near what they were even a year ago,” said Stephanie McCleskey, vice president of research for Axiometrics. “We see the diminished demand not only in the negative rent growth, but in occupancy rates, which were the lowest they've been since April 2012.”
In September, Houston's average rent was $1,075 versus $1,290 for the national average rent. And, Houston had a 92.7% occupancy versus a slightly higher 95.1% national occupancy.
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Lisa Brown
Lisa Brown is an editor for the south and west regions of GlobeSt.com. She has 25-plus years of real estate experience, with a regional PR role at Grubb & Ellis and a national communications position at MMI. Brown also spent 10 years as executive director at NAIOP San Francisco Bay Area chapter, where she led the organization to achieving its first national award honors and recognition on Capitol Hill. She has written extensively on commercial real estate topics and edited numerous pieces on the subject.
