Houston Multifamily Report – July 2026
While the wider recovery lags, rents find some footing.
Houston’s multifamily market showed early signs of seasonal rent improvement, but softness in occupancy and investment pricing kept the recovery uneven. Advertised asking rents inched up 0.1 percent, on a trailing three-month basis through May, to $1,359, 20 basis points below the U.S. average. The occupancy rate in stabilized properties dropped 100 basis points year-over-year, to 91.6 percent in April, below the 94.1 percent national figure.
Houston’s employment growth slowed to 0.4 percent year-over-year through February but remained ahead of the U.S. rate. Unemployment clocked in at 4.3 percent in April, mirroring the state and national rates, according to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Houston added 7,700 net jobs in the 12 months ending in February, with education and health services leading gains. Logistics and manufacturing activity remained a key offset, with Port Houston securing funding for Bayport improvements, Target opening its first U.S. Receive Center and Apple expanding its Houston manufacturing campus.
Developers delivered 3,941 units through May, while the pipeline remained sizable with 26,447 units under construction. Transaction volume reached $1 billion through May, with West Houston accounting for 92 percent of the total. Meanwhile, the average price per unit decreased 1.4 percent year-to-date through May, to $131,022, a softer decline than the national 7.6 percent drop to $185,821.
