With regard to investments, NAI Partners just sold the Investment Fund's original acquisition, 12600 N. Featherwood Dr. in Southeast Houston near Hobby. GlobeSt.com learns that the Fund bought the property in 2016 at 76% occupancy and leased it to 94% in a challenging office market.

“It's the first exit for Fund I, and the return on investment for our investors exceeded our expectations,” said Andrew Pappas, SVP, NAI Investment Fund. “We also recently closed Fund II—which originally sought to raise $9 million and is officially oversubscribed—and we are looking forward to building a strong $40 million-plus portfolio of office, industrial and retail properties throughout Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas.”

NAI experts said retail is at nearly full absorption. That market indicator, alongside significantly less retail construction being delivered in 2017, has resulted in historically low vacancy and continuously increasing rental rates.

“Houston definitely has a stigma about two-story retail. If I were to survey my clients right now, 75% would say no thanks, while 25% would consider giving it a chance,” said Jason Gaines, SVP, NAI retail services. “When it comes to mixed use, it can go one of two ways: a developer can go big retail at the expense of the tenants, or focus mostly on the residential component with retail as an afterthought. Unfortunately, the latter tends to result in things like residents parking in spaces that are supposed to be for the retail tenants and their customers only. The most successful mixed-use cases tend to be things like Whole Foods at BLVD Place, where the project was essentially built around their needs—as a result, it's one of the more seamless in-and-out experiences at any grocery store in the city.”

Due to Houston's over-reliance on cars and worsening-by-the-day traffic problems, an increase in on-demand businesses is becoming more evident. Examples include physicians, notary service and even craft beer delivery called Hop Drop—which promises fresh craft beer straight from breweries in under an hour.

Meanwhile, the boundaries of Houston industrial keep expanding, with bigger spec construction than ever before, such as Best Buy's building of a 500,000-square-foot facility.

“Land constraints are probably the biggest factor inhibiting big boxes from building distribution centers in the city limits, which is partially why you're seeing the industrial market expand well beyond Beltway 8,” said Gray Gilbert, partner, NAI Partners.

Silberman shared his insights on the Houston economy and infrastructure, along with the metro's obvious omission from Amazon's list.

“Houston is going to continue to have difficulty doing things like attracting the Amazons of the world until we have an infrastructure plan in place. And not being able to lure the world's biggest corporations will restrict Houston's ability to grow,” Silberman said. “While the high-speed train to Dallas isn't a bad idea, I'd rather see that $18 billion go toward a plan to address our infrastructure problems that would allay the fears of companies considering our city. Right now, if we're counting on big corporations moving to Houston as a driver of economic growth, Amazon's decision to pass us over should be a wake-up call.”