Houston apartment market projected to improve in 2019

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THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE (JANUARY 22, 2019) – Houston’s apartment market is projected to improve this year, fed by a job market that’s poised to grow and millennials who favor renting over home ownership, developers and analysts told about 300 members of the Houston Apartment Association on Tuesday.

Last year was an outlier because of Hurricane Harvey’s impact on the market. The area experienced strong job growth, but toward the end of the year short-term renters who had been temporarily displaced by the hurricane moved back into their homes or bought new ones.

“There were people moving in, but basically they were a replacement for people moving out and going back to the single-family market,” said Greg Willett, chief economist at RealPage. The real estate data firm, based in Richardson, released a report last week ranking Houston last among major markets in several key apartment performance metrics in 2018.

Still, he’s optimistic for 2019, citing healthy projected job growth and a reasonable number of units under construction.

Read more at: THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE.