Speaking of....
Why Empty Offices Are Becoming Apartments in Texas’s Big Cities
With workers continuing to stay home post-pandemic and housing in short supply, developers in the state’s largest metros are giving a second life to old buildings.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-po...s-conversions/
The trend seems tailor-made for Texas. Office-vacancy rates in most of the state’s major downtowns are high (roughly 25 percent in Dallas and Houston, in the teens in Fort Worth and San Antonio). The cost of single-family homes has skyrocketed and interest rates have risen, making many would-be buyers renters. And relatively few apartments are available, with vacancy levels in the single digits and pricey monthly rents expected to get even pricier, according to projections from the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.
What’s more, decades-old buildings may be more cost-effective and environmentally friendly to revamp into residences than ground-up construction, experts say, since the building’s shell is already in place and carbon emissions from the creation of new materials can be reduced.
“I think it checks all the boxes,” Chuck Dannis, an adjunct professor of practice in real estate at Southern Methodist University, says of the office-to-apartment trend. “You get empty space filled, and you get some people back into the inner city and you increase the tax rolls. I think all of that is good.”
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