Austin ranked second in country for apartment growth

The Austin area has the second-highest rate of apartment growth in the country, according to a recent report by RealPage, a real-estate software and data analytics provider. The company’s analysis of the expansion of apartment inventory in several U.S. cities over the past eight years found that Austin’s percentage of growth second only to that of Charlotte, North Carolina.

RealPage found that Austin inventory expanded 29.2 percent during that period, meaning approximately one in five of the city’s nearly 240,000 units was built in the past eight years. The report puts the number of units added in Austin during that time at 54,078.

Inventory growth since 2000 is even higher: about 43% of the market’s apartment stock (102,000 completed units) was built in the past 18 years, according to the report, making for a 75 percent growth rate since then.

Growth rate correlates somewhat with the number of added units, but only loosely, of course. While the number of completed units Austin has added since the year 2000 is more than those of most of the study’s top 10 cities, much larger metro areas, such as Dallas and Houston, completed upward of 100,000 new units during the same period.

Nationwide, about 1.5 million units have completed in the U.S. during the eight-year cycle, RealPage reported—an 11.1% increase in the total apartment stock. The top 10 market-level expansion rates were at 17.3% or higher. San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston joined Austin on the list, making Texas the most represented state in the top 10. North Carolina had two metro areas—Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham—on the list.

“Laggards” for the cycle included Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago metro areas—percentages coming in lower because of the exceptionally large number of existing units in the big cities.

• Texas, North Carolina Dominate Fastest-Growing Apartment Markets List [RealPage]