Quarterly Program · Texas

The Hudson Texas Multifamily Briefing.

A quarterly read on Texas multifamily markets — which are favorable for sellers, which are not, and the conditions driving each. Below: the Mid-Year 2026 read. The full Q2 2026 edition publishes early Q3 — subscribe to receive it.

Mid-Year 2026 Read Published July 2026 · Texas · 50–300 Unit Mid-Market · 1980–2018 Vintage

01 · House ViewPast peak supply pressure, ahead of the rent recovery

Texas multifamily enters the second half of 2026 with the cycle's defining gap on full display: construction has contracted sharply in all four major metros, while rents remain soft and capital is already transacting ahead of fundamentals. Houston's 2026 deliveries are the lowest since 2013[4]. San Antonio's are the slowest since 2011, with roughly 800 units left to deliver this year[4]. Construction activity in Dallas–Fort Worth has declined for eleven consecutive quarters[1][3]. Austin is still working through the state's deepest correction — yet first-quarter demand ran nearly double deliveries[1]. Statewide, Texas A&M's Real Estate Research Center projects fewer than 35,000 units delivering across Texas in 2026 — a 1.4% inventory increase, after 93,000 units in the prior twelve months.

Meanwhile the capital market has moved first. DFW trailing-year sales volume is up roughly 42%[4]; Houston 2025 volume rose 32%[4]; agency lending roughly doubled year-over-year in the first quarter as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac compete earlier in the asset lifecycle[10]; and county records show mid-market turnover across the major metros recovering from the 2023–24 trough. For owners of 50–300 unit, 1980–2018 vintage assets, the second half of 2026 is a window where preparation — not timing — determines the outcome. The key risk to this view: a rate shock that stalls the capital-markets recovery before rents inflect.

+1.9%
Texas employment growth forecast, 2026
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
11 qtrs
Consecutive decline in DFW construction activity
Published research [1][3]
Lowest since 2013
Houston scheduled deliveries, 2026 (~3,000 units)
Published research [4]
7.9%
DFW mid-market turnover 2025, up from 6.3% in 2024
Hudson analysis of public records

02 · Transaction RealityWhat the county records show

Texas is a non-disclosure state: sale prices are not publicly recorded, and any dollar-volume figure you read is a modeled estimate. Deal count, doors traded, and turnover — drawn directly from county records — are the grounded activity signal. Hudson builds these from the public records themselves, for the specific segment we cover:

  • Dallas–Fort Worth (roughly 1,400 mid-market properties, ~259,000 units across the metro’s core counties): segment turnover ran 10.9% (2021) → 12.0% (2022) → 6.6% (2023) → 6.3% (2024) → 7.9% (2025). The trough is behind.
  • Houston (652 properties, ~130,000 units in the core county): 15.3% (2021) → 3.7% (2023) → 8.3% (2025) — more than doubled off the floor, with roughly 11,100 doors changing hands last year.
  • Austin (core county): turnover held between 4.7% and 8.8% in every year from 2019 through 2025 — the mid-market kept trading straight through the correction. Liquidity never left; pricing did.

Source: Hudson Multifamily Group — proprietary analysis of Texas county records, filtered to Hudson's 50–300 unit mid-market segment (1980s–2010s-vintage analysis set; coverage runs 1980–2018 and the series is refreshed quarterly). Counts reflect recorded ownership transfers, may include non-arms-length transfers, and the most recent year is partial and subject to revision as records are updated. Directional estimates, not verified totals. The underlying methodology is proprietary to Hudson Multifamily Group.

03 · Market-by-MarketThe four majors, mid-year

Dallas–Fort Worth

  • Occupancy 93.2%, rising quarter-over-quarter; absorption trailing deliveries as the market digests the development cycle [1][2]
  • Beneath the headline, Q1 demand concentrated in lease-ups: properties stabilized 18+ months shed roughly 6,400 leased units — yet longer-stabilized assets are defending occupancy with far lighter concessions (under 25% offering ~4 weeks free, vs 45% and 6.4 weeks at lease-ups) [14]
  • Rents roughly −2% year-over-year, with concessions widespread; vacancy projected to peak this year [3][11]
  • About 30,000 units underway — a multi-year low after eleven straight quarters of declining construction [1][3]
  • Trailing-year sales volume ~$10.4B, up ~42%, with cap rates compressing into the second half and metro pricing holding a premium to the other Texas majors — all-class aggregates [4]
  • Multifamily debt maturities cluster through 2026 and rise to ~$3.0B in 2027 — refinancings, extensions, and restructurings expected to drive activity [9]
The read: capital is ahead of fundamentals. Supply relief is a 2027 story, which argues for either selling into today's liquidity or holding a well-located asset deliberately through the recovery — not for sitting undecided. The maturity wall makes "undecided" expensive.

Houston

  • Stabilized occupancy near 92.2%; effective rents gained 1.0% to open 2026, and metro vacancy recorded its first quarterly decline in over two years [6][4]
  • The same lease-up pull operating statewide shows here too: existing stabilized properties shed ~5,500 leased units in Q1 even as metro absorption stayed positive — the drain concentrates in newer product competing head-on with lease-ups [14]
  • Q1 net absorption of roughly 3,600 units, moderating from ~4,300 the prior quarter; consensus forecasts put 2026 rent growth near +2.3% [2][4][3]
  • Roughly 3,000 units scheduled to deliver in 2026 — the lowest completion total since 2013 [4]
  • 2025 investment volume $3.4B, up 32.2%, with pricing well below the national average [4]
  • Properties built 1980–2008 made up more than half of recent sales — the mid-market vintage is what is actually trading [4]
The read: the cleanest setup in Texas. Supply is breaking, demand is steady and healthcare-led, and the buyer pool for the segment Hudson covers is demonstrably active.

Austin

  • Vacancy elevated but improving — 11.5% on the annual measure, down 90 bps over the trailing year with Class B/C leading the improvement; Q1 point-in-time prints run as high as 13.5% [4][1]
  • Asking rents near $1,500, down ~5% year-over-year — but Q1's 0.1% slip was the smallest quarterly decline since 2023 [1][6][4]
  • First-quarter absorption of 3,800 units ran nearly double the 2,000 delivered; trailing-year absorption outpaced deliveries [1][4]
  • Strongest first-quarter investment since 2022, with cap rates stabilizing and institutional buyers near three-quarters of volume [4]
  • Pipeline still working through: roughly 15,000–23,000 units underway depending on count; mid-market turnover held 4.7–8.8% every year through the downturn [1][6] (turnover: Hudson analysis of public records)
The read: the correction is real, but demand has re-engaged and institutional capital moved back in first — and as rental-housing economist Jay Parsons notes nationally, rent-cutting markets are absorbing twice the units of rent-growth markets. Demand chases the discount, and that is how overhangs burn off. For owners, Austin is a preparation market — position now for the window that opens as the pipeline clears.

San Antonio

  • The Q1 reads diverge by provider — the signature of a market at the turn: one dataset records vacancy up 160 bps with negative first-quarter absorption; another shows year-to-date absorption (2,072 units) outpacing deliveries (1,635) with occupancy trending up from its 2023 low [4][5]
  • The rent signal is consistent everywhere: asking rents at or near multi-year lows, roughly $1,200–$1,230, down about 3% year-over-year [5][6][4]
  • The sharpest supply shutoff in Texas: only ~800 units left to deliver in 2026, a full-year total (~2,600) down 63% and the slowest since 2011; the pipeline has been shrinking since its 2024 peak [4][5]
  • Cap rates widened roughly 50 bps versus 2024; distress activity increased even as population growth stays among the nation's strongest [4][6][5]
The read: the toughest print of the four majors on some measures — and already rebalancing on others. Either way, the supply shutoff is the state's sharpest, and forced sellers are setting comps that patient, well-operated owners should not accept as their own.

04 · Owner Advisory PerspectiveSell, hold, or refinance — the mid-year frame

Sell

Capital has returned ahead of rents. DFW and Houston volumes are up sharply, and the county records show an active buyer pool for 1980–2018 vintage mid-market assets. A prepared asset in a supply-constrained submarket meets real competition today — readiness, not timing, determines whether you capture it.

Hold

Rents remain negative in three of the four majors and concessions are live. If the asset is mid-reposition, sits in a high-supply suburban belt, or is in San Antonio's soft patch, holding into the 2027 supply trough is a defensible read — provided the debt structure cooperates.

Refinance

With cap rates flat-to-compressing and agency lenders actively competing — agency volumes roughly doubled year-over-year in Q1[10] — owners facing 2026–27 loan maturities should model a refinance against a sale before defaulting to either. In DFW alone, roughly $3.0B of multifamily debt matures into 2027[9] — and nationally, more than $160B of multifamily debt comes due in 2026, up over 50% from last year, with delinquency on securitized multifamily loans climbing to 7.7% in April[13]. The numbers decide, not the calendar.

The Hudson Observation

Supply is collapsing into an intact, growing demand engine while capital transacts ahead of the rent recovery — and the owners who do well from here will not be the ones who time the top. They will be the ones whose asset is diagnosed, prepared, and ready when they decide to act.

Every Hudson engagement begins with the diagnosis — sell, hold, or refinance — run on your actual numbers and your actual submarket. If a decision is on your horizon in the next 12–24 months, the diagnosis is the place to start.

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Sources & Methodology

The analysis, advisory framework, and public-records work in this briefing are Hudson Multifamily Group's own. Bracketed references [n] point to the published third-party research below, used as inputs and cross-checks. Figures are reported as published; where providers differ, ranges are shown. All sources are publicly available, current as of the latest available prints (Q1 2026) and county public records through 2025. Texas is a non-disclosure state — transaction volumes, price-per-unit figures, and cap rates are aggregated estimates published by the referenced providers, not specific transaction prices. Segment definition: 50–300 unit properties built from 1980 to within roughly eight years of publication (currently 1980–2018); the vintage window rolls forward each year. The full Q2 2026 edition, incorporating quarter-end prints, publishes in early Q3.

  1. Matthews — Dallas–Fort Worth Multifamily Market Report, Q1 2026; Austin Multifamily Market Report, Q1 2026
  2. Colliers — DFW and Houston Multifamily Market Reports, Q1 2026
  3. Marcus & Millichap / IPA — 2026 Investment Forecasts (DFW, Houston)
  4. Northmarq — DFW, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio multifamily research, Q4 2025–Q1 2026
  5. Newmark — 1Q26 San Antonio Multifamily Market Snapshot (RealPage Market Analytics data)
  6. Yardi Matrix — Houston, Austin, and San Antonio Multifamily Market Reports, early 2026
  7. Greater Houston Partnership — 2026 Employment Forecast
  8. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas — Texas Employment Forecast
  9. Transwestern — Dallas–Fort Worth Multifamily Market, Q1 2026 (debt-maturity schedule)
  10. Walker & Dunlop — Q1 2026 results and underwriting-trends research (agency lending volume, GSE competitiveness)
  11. CRE Daily — Dallas rent trend reporting, early 2026
  12. Hudson Multifamily Group — proprietary analysis of Texas county records (methodology proprietary)
  13. Trepp — multifamily CMBS delinquency and 2026 maturity-volume data, as reported by Multifamily Dive, May 2026 (securitized loans only — a stress signal for the riskier slice of the debt market, not the agency-dominated whole)
  14. ALN Apartment Data — Strong Demand Masks Stress in Existing Multifamily Stock, April 2026 (Q1 2026 stabilized-stock and concession data; shared with link per ALN’s published sharing terms)
  15. Texas A&M University, Texas Real Estate Research Center — 2026 Texas Real Estate Forecast, January 2026 (statewide multifamily inventory, delivery, and rent outlook)
  16. Jay Parsons — rental-housing economist; March 2026 multifamily update, jayparsons.com (supply-cycle and absorption dynamics)
IMPORTANT INFORMATION & DISCLAIMER

This report is published by Hudson Multifamily Group for general informational purposes only. It presents market-level data and analysis for the Texas multifamily sector. It is not an appraisal, broker price opinion, or opinion of value for any specific property, and it does not constitute legal, tax, accounting, investment, or other professional advice. No part of this report has been prepared in accordance with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice.

The information in this report was compiled from public records and third-party sources believed to be reliable. Hudson Multifamily Group has not independently verified all information and makes no representation or warranty, express or implied, as to its accuracy or completeness. Market statistics may include estimates and are subject to revision without notice. Texas is a non-disclosure state: transaction prices are not publicly recorded, and any figures relating to sales activity are directional estimates rather than verified totals. Past performance is not a prediction of future results.

Readers should not make investment, disposition, financing, or other decisions on the basis of this report alone. Any information material to a decision should be independently verified, and readers should consult their own legal, tax, and financial advisors. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Hudson Multifamily Group, The END Group, Co., and their respective principals, employees, and agents disclaim all liability for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, arising from the use of or reliance on this report.

This report is general information and not a solicitation of any property currently listed with another broker.

Hudson Multifamily Group is a registered assumed business name (DBA) of The END Group, Co., a licensed Texas real estate brokerage · TREC Broker License No. 9016115-BB · Nick D'Arcy, CCIM, Broker, TREC License No. 754802-B · Texas Real Estate Commission Information About Brokerage Services · Texas Real Estate Commission Consumer Protection Notice

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