HOUSTON—Since oil prices first crashed in 2014, Houston's real estate market has been headed squarely in the wrong direction. Industrial and office values have suffered due to deep cuts in the city's massive energy market and home prices have followed suit, according to online real estate marketplace, Ten-X.

However, the city retains a lone bright spot in its retail market. While the sector struggles to capture any sustained growth on a national level, Houston retail jobs jumped 5.1% during the last year, the healthiest growth of the current cycle, while average rents soared 3% to an all-time high. Despite 1.7 million new square feet of retail space coming to market during 2016, vacancy rates remain unchanged and should descend in the years to come–an indicator that unlike much of the country, the city is actually adding new retailers at a healthy clip.

In the recent Ten-X US retail market outlook, the firm taps the top five buy and sell markets for retail real estate assets. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Austin and Tampa are markets in which investors should consider buying retail assets. These markets concentrated in Florida and Texas have been able to defy national trends, primarily thanks to robust local economies fueled by consistent job and population growth.