Fort Worth, Texas

Section 01Executive Summary

Fort Worth is a large, still growing North Texas city whose housing and labor story is best read at three nested geographies. The city proper is the unit for household income, tenure, rents, and vacancy. Tarrant County is the best public proxy for building permits, county product, and population estimates. The Fort Worth Arlington Grapevine metropolitan division is the unit the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics uses for payroll jobs and the local unemployment rate. Those three frames do not describe identical places, and figures below are labeled whenever they step outside city limits.

On the 2020 Census count the city had 918,915 residents. The Census Bureau American Community Survey 2024 one year estimate puts the city at 1,014,376 people, with a margin of error of 6,611. That is a young city: the ACS 2024 median age is 33.6 years. Tarrant County, of which Fort Worth is the seat and largest city, had a Census Bureau July 1 population of 2,248,466 in 2025, up from 2,116,194 in 2020 on the same FRED hosted county estimate series.

The labor market is expanding, not booming. In the Fort Worth Arlington Grapevine division, preliminary June 2026 nonfarm payroll employment was 1,224,700, up 1.3% from a year earlier, while the not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.6%. Construction, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and trade, transportation, and utilities added jobs. Information, government, manufacturing, and financial activities did not. Consumer prices for the broader Dallas Fort Worth Arlington area rose 2.9% over the 12 months ending July 2026.

The housing stock is still majority single family, but renters are a large minority and a sizable share of them already live in detached houses. ACS 2024 counts 397,627 housing units, 362,403 occupied households, median owner occupied value of $330,500, median gross rent of $1,630, and 15,951 vacant units listed for rent. The implied rental vacancy rate using the Census formula (units for rent divided by units for rent plus renter occupied units) is 9.5%. That is a soft occupancy starting point for new multifamily, not a shortage tape. County permit data show Tarrant authorized 18,858 private housing units in 2024 and 13,924 in 2025, so the pipeline has cooled after a very large 2024 vintage. Redfin reports that the median sale price of a Fort Worth home over the three months ending June 2026 was $339,815, essentially unchanged from a year earlier, and Zillow reports an average advertised rent of $2,077 across all advertised listings in mid 2026, down $23 from a year earlier.

The public vacancy print for Fort Worth city residences is that ACS 2024 Census rental vacancy rate of 9.5%, equal to 15,951 units listed for rent against 151,953 renter occupied units. No public Fort Worth commercial vacancy rate or cap rate is published. What the public record does show is a large, relatively affordable renter pool, a meaningful single family rental footprint, a logistics and aviation employment base, no state personal income tax, and a property tax system that is the main local levy. That combination is the investment frame. It is not a verdict. Past conditions and trends do not assure future occupancy, rents, or investment results.

Section 02Population and Migration

Fort Worth’s 2020 Census count of 918,915 is the last full enumeration. The ACS 2024 one year estimate of 1,014,376 is a survey, not a count, and should be read with its 6,611 person margin of error. Even with that caution, the direction is the same as the county series: the west side of the metroplex kept adding people after 2020. Tarrant County’s July 1 Census estimates moved from 2,116,194 in 2020 to 2,230,038 in 2024 and 2,248,466 in 2025. The 2024 to 2025 county gain was 18,428 people. That is slower than the 2022 to 2024 pace, which matters for absorption math: household formation is still positive, but it is not accelerating.

The city is demographically young and Hispanic at a large scale. ACS 2024 median age is 33.6 years (33.1 for males, 34.1 for females). Of 1,014,376 residents, 357,118 are Hispanic or Latino of any race and 657,258 are not. A younger median age is often associated with longer remaining renter tenures and with school enrollment pressure. It is also consistent with more first time household formation than in older Northeast and Midwest central cities. Those associations are demographic context, not a forecast of occupancy, enrollment, or household formation.

Geographic mobility in ACS 2024 covers 1,000,745 people age one year and over. Most did not move. The residual is still a large flow by the standards of a city this size.

The analytical point is not that Fort Worth is a pure inbound migration magnet. Same county churn (89,435 people) dwarfs moves from other states (20,578). Local turnover, new local household formation, and Texas to Texas moves are the volume drivers. Interstate and international inflows are real, and 8,159 arrivals from abroad in a single ACS year is not trivial, but they are not the majority of demand. Investors who underwrite only California inflows can misread the renter pool. Investors who ignore 20,578 interstate movers and 31,303 other Texas movers can understate demand.

ACS 2024 counts 362,403 households, of which 234,218 are family households and 163,233 are married couple families. Nonfamily households number 128,185, including 105,212 people living alone. Dividing 1,014,376 people by 362,403 households produces a survey ratio of about 2.80 persons per household; that ratio is not a Census Bureau published average household size figure. What can be said from the published counts is that family households still dominate, which supports three bedroom product, while more than 100,000 one person households support studios and one bedroom apartments near jobs and the core.

Section 03Jobs and Economic Anchors

City residents and city jobs are not the same thing. ACS 2024 reports 506,425 employed civilians living in Fort Worth. Many of them work elsewhere in the metroplex, and many Fort Worth payroll jobs are held by suburban in commuters. The cleanest current payroll series is therefore the BLS Current Employment Statistics survey for the Fort Worth Arlington Grapevine metropolitan division, not seasonally adjusted, data extracted August 18, 2026.

June 2026 civilian labor force in the division was 1,458,100, with 1,390,600 employed and 67,600 unemployed, for a 4.6% unemployment rate. That rate is a bit above the May reading of 4.0% and should be treated as a summer not seasonally adjusted print, not as a sudden labor market break. The 12 month payroll gain of 1.3% is positive and modest. It is not the 2021 style surge.

Sector mix is the demand tell. Trade, transportation, and utilities is the largest supersector at 291,400 jobs. That is warehouses, trucking, wholesale, retail, and utilities sitting on the west side of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Alliance Airport, Interstate 35 West, and the BNSF Railway network. Professional and business services at 157,300 jobs, up 3.6% over 12 months, is the white collar growth sleeve. Leisure and hospitality at 147,600, up 4.0%, tracks hotels, restaurants, and the Stockyards and downtown visitor economy. Construction at 92,200, up 4.7%, is still adding payrolls even as housing permits cooled in 2025, which is consistent with a long industrial and infrastructure book.

The weak sleeves matter as much as the strong ones. Information employment is only 11,400 jobs and was down 7.3% over 12 months, so this is not an AI campus market. Financial activities at 77,600 were down 1.1%. Manufacturing at 109,900 was down 0.5%, which is a pause, not a collapse, in a city whose identity still includes Lockheed Martin aeronautics, Bell Textron rotorcraft, and related suppliers. Government at 135,500 was down 2.4%. A market whose public payroll is shrinking and whose private growth is in logistics, professional services, hospitality, and construction has in some U.S. markets been associated with renter demand in the middle of the wage distribution more than at the top; that pattern is an interpretation of the sector mix, not a sourced historical series and not a forecast.

Resident industry from ACS 2024 (people who live in the city, wherever they work) lines up with that story.

Health systems, school employment, and the airport logistics complex are household anchors. Named headquarters that the public record places in Fort Worth include American Airlines, BNSF Railway, and Bell Textron, with Lockheed Martin aeronautics production as a defining plant economy. No public official headcount is published for those employers at the Fort Worth location level.

The broader Dallas Fort Worth Arlington metropolitan statistical area added 54,600 jobs over the year to June 2026, according to the BLS metropolitan area employment news release dated July 29, 2026. Within that MSA, the Dallas Plano Irving division accounted for 39,000 of the gain. The Fort Worth Arlington Grapevine division’s 1.3% payroll increase is the smaller, more industrial share of the same metro expansion, not a separate island.

Section 04Income

ACS 2024 median household income in Fort Worth is $82,503, in 2024 inflation adjusted dollars, with a margin of error of $2,414. Per capita income is $40,415. Those are city resident figures. They sit below Tarrant County per capita personal income from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which was $69,936 in 2024. The gap is conceptual as well as geographic. BEA personal income includes supplements, proprietors’ income, and dividends that ACS money income does not, and the county includes higher income suburbs. Investors should not treat $82,503 and $69,936 as a disagreement about the same number.

The middle of the distribution is thick. Households at $75,000 and above are 54.64% of all households. Households under $25,000 are 14.23%. For multifamily underwriting, $82,503 median income against $1,630 median gross rent implies that a typical renter household is not automatically rent burdened at the median, but the rent burden tables in the Rents section show that many renter households are. The owner occupied median value of $330,500 against $82,503 income is a milder value to income ratio than coastal cities, which is why Fort Worth still functions as an ownership alternative inside a very large metro. It is also why single family rental operators can still find detached product that is not priced like a coastal trophy.

Tarrant County GDP was $178,003,332,000 in 2024, up from $167,550,982,000 in 2023 and $152,114,812,000 in 2022. County product is large and still rising in current dollars. That is consistent with retail spending capacity, industrial absorption potential, and the tax base. It does not, by itself, tighten apartments if supply is also rising.

The Dallas Fort Worth Arlington Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers was 311.093 in July 2026, up 2.9% from a year earlier (BLS, 1982 to 1984 equals 100, not seasonally adjusted). No public city level official wage series is published. Price inflation near 3% is the local cost of living tape until a better wage series is in hand.

Texas levies no state personal income tax. That is a statutory fact, not a forecast, and it remains part of the inbound household pitch. Local taxation is concentrated in property tax, which is covered in the Taxes section.

Section 05Housing and Multifamily

ACS 2024 is the best public description of the city’s physical stock. Fort Worth had 397,627 housing units and 362,403 occupied units. Owner occupied units were 210,450 (58.07% of occupied). Renter occupied units were 151,953 (41.93%). This is not a renter majority central city. It is a majority ownership city with a very large renter minority, which is the typical Sun Belt pattern.

Structures with five or more units total 101,813. That is the conventional multifamily and large apartment stock. Structures with 50 or more units (35,197) are the mid rise and high rise sleeve, still a minority. Garden product in the 5 to 49 unit bands is a large part of the apartment inventory. Any investor who thinks Fort Worth multifamily means only downtown towers is looking at the wrong building.

Tenure by structure is the single family rental tell. Of 151,953 renter occupied units, 46,040 are one unit detached houses. That is 30.3% of renter households living in a detached house. Owner occupied one unit detached houses are 200,500. The detached rental book is already a core rental product in this city, not a niche.

Age of stock shows a construction boom that is still in the numbers.

Units built in 2010 or later are 115,376, or 29.02% of the stock. Units built in 2020 or later are already 33,211. Among renter occupied units, 9,977 were built in 2020 or later and 37,730 were built from 2010 to 2019. The rental inventory is younger than the owner inventory in the 2010s vintage, which is what a Sun Belt apartment boom looks like after the fact. Newer stock means more amenities, more debt, and more lease up competition. It also means less immediate capital expenditure than a 1950s walk up inventory, except where 1980s gardens need mechanical replacement.

Bedroom mix is family skewed.

Three bedroom units are the mode. Combined three and four bedroom units are 57.55% of the stock. That is single family and suburban garden talking, not a studio market. Multifamily that ignores three bedroom demand in this city is fighting the household structure.

Median owner occupied value is $330,500 (ACS 2024). That is a stock median of occupied owner homes, not a current MLS median sale. Redfin’s current sale median of $339,815 for the three months ending June 2026 sits close to that ACS stock median and is the usable 2026 transaction print. The ACS value remains the most defensible public city stock figure, and both prints are low enough relative to coastal metros that payment shock, not price, is the binding constraint when mortgage rates are elevated.

Section 06Rents

The public rent tape for the city has two honest layers. ACS 2024 is the occupied renter median. Zillow is the advertised asking rent across current listings. Median contract rent (rent excluding most utilities) is $1,398. Median gross rent (contract rent plus estimated utilities) is $1,630. The $232 gap is the typical utility add. Median gross rent as a percentage of household income is 33.1%, which is just above the conventional 30% burden line at the median renter.

HUD Fair Market Rents for fiscal year 2026 are the voucher payment standard backbone. The Dallas TX HUD Metro FMR Area two bedroom FMR is $1,931 for FY 2026, with a one bedroom at $1,648, but that HUD area is Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Hunt, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties. Tarrant County is not in that list. Applying the Dallas HUD schedule to Fort Worth would be a geographic error. Tarrant County sits in the Fort Worth Arlington HUD Metro FMR Area with Johnson and Parker counties. HUD’s FY 2026 schedule for that area is:

The ACS city medians and the Zillow advertised averages below remain the occupied and asking rent prints for Fort Worth city itself. The HUD schedule is a voucher payment standard for Johnson, Parker, and Tarrant counties, not a market asking rent.

Zillow Rental Manager reports the following advertised averages for Fort Worth in mid 2026.

Zillow’s all property type average of $2,077 is 3.85% above its stated national average of $2,000 and is $23 lower than a year earlier. The advertised range runs from $425 to $17,523, and Zillow counted 2,516 active rentals. The four bedroom average is pulled higher by houses and luxury listings and should not be read as a typical garden apartment rent. ACS median gross rent of $1,630 remains the better measure of what occupied renter households actually pay.

Among renter households with a computed ratio (144,427), 78,910 pay 30% or more of income on gross rent, and 42,998 pay 50% or more. That is 54.64% rent burdened and 29.77% severely burdened among computed renters. Affordability is not solved by a $1,630 median. New Class A deliveries compete with a large stock of cheaper gardens and with 46,040 detached rentals. No public same unit asking rent index is published for Fort Worth city. National Apartment List commentary for July 2026 described Sun Belt softness and a national median rent of $1,388, down 1.1% year over year, with national multifamily vacancy at 7.2%. That national context is consistent with Fort Worth’s 9.5% rental vacancy, but it is not a Fort Worth asking rent print.

For investors, the rent section’s usable conclusion is simple. In place ACS rents are moderate. Advertised Zillow rents sit higher because they mix houses and current listings. Burden is already high for a large minority of renters. Pricing power, if any, would depend on slowing deliveries, not on a shortage of units today, and no particular rent path is assured.

Section 07Vacancy

ACS 2024 vacant units total 35,224, or 8.86% of 397,627 units. Vacancy status is more useful than the headline.

The Census rental vacancy rate is 15,951 / (15,951 + 151,953) = 9.50%. The homeowner vacancy rate is 2,282 / (2,282 + 210,450) = 1.07%. Those two rates describe different markets. Ownership looks tight. Rentals look loose. “Other vacant” at 10,243 units is a large residual (held off market, pending estate, repairs, and similar). It is not the same as available supply.

A 9.50% rental vacancy is not a lease up setting in which concessions are rare. New 2024 and 2025 deliveries still compete, and 2026 and 2027 vintages would need a slower permit tape to recover occupancy; that recovery is not assured. Stabilized gardens with in place tenants may still run better occupancy than the citywide vacant for rent pool. No public property level occupancy file is published.

Seasonal vacancy is only 950 units. Fort Worth is not a second home market. Vacancy is economic, not recreational.

Section 08Supply Pipeline

The defensible public proxy is the Census Bureau Building Permits Survey for Tarrant County, new private housing units authorized.

2024 was the largest year in this 2020 to 2025 window. 2025 fell to 13,924, below 2023. Permits are authorizations, not completions, and they mix single family and multifamily. They still tell the cycle. The county put a very large 2021, 2022, and 2024 authorization wave into the ground. ACS already records 33,211 city units built in 2020 or later. Authorizations from the 2024 permit spike, if completed, could still deliver into 2026 and 2027. The 2025 permit drop is the first public sign that the supply wave is cresting. If jobs kept growing at 1.3% and permits stayed near 14,000 countywide, vacancy could grind down; if 2026 permits rebounded toward 18,000 while jobs stalled, vacancy could stay high. Those are hypothetical scenarios, not forecasts, and neither path is assured.

No public count of units under construction, quarterly multifamily deliveries, or named apartment projects is published. Alliance Texas and the far north submarkets have been the industrial and residential growth edge, but no public unit count for those submarkets is published.

Section 09Single Family Homes

Detached houses are the city’s dominant asset. ACS 2024 counts 259,508 one unit detached structures, 65.26% of all units. Owner occupied detached houses are 200,500. Renter occupied detached houses are 46,040. The single family rental book is already about one in three renter households.

Redfin and ACS together give the current sale and stock picture.

At the ACS median of $330,500 and the Redfin sale median of $339,815, a single family rental underwriting case depends on rent, tax, insurance, and maintenance, not on a coastal entry price, and no particular cash on cash or other return result is shown or assured. ACS does not publish a separate contract rent for detached rentals. Applying the citywide $1,398 median contract rent to a three bedroom house would understate house rents in many north and west submarkets and overstate them in older east and south pockets. A citywide price to rent ratio is therefore not computed.

Homeowner vacancy of 1.07% says listings are thinner than apartments. That can support resale liquidity for build to rent exits into the owner market when mortgage rates allow, though liquidity is not assured. It also means scattered site single family rental operators compete with resident buyers for the same stock around the ACS and Redfin medians. Newer 2020 and later detached product (20,318 owner occupied units built in 2020 or later) is the competing amenity set for both owner occupants and professional landlords. Tarrant Appraisal District appraises the assessed value used in local levies. The City of Fort Worth fiscal year 2026 property tax rate is $0.670000 per $100 of assessed value, down from $0.672500 per $100 in fiscal year 2025. Assessed value on a Tarrant roll will not equal contract price. The public stock and sale prints that sit next to that assessed value levy are the ACS 2024 median owner occupied value of $330,500 and the Redfin median sale price of $339,815 for the three months ending June 2026.

Build to rent communities are a logical product in a city where 38.02% of units have three bedrooms and 30.3% of renters already occupy detached houses. No public census of build to rent communities in Fort Worth is published.

Section 10Commercial Real Estate and Retail Centers

No public Fort Worth office, industrial, or retail vacancy rate, asking rent, or cap rate is published.

What can be said from labor and land use is directional. Trade, transportation, and utilities employment of 291,400 in the division, plus Alliance Airport, BNSF, and the Interstate 35 West corridor, is an industrial and logistics demand story. Construction employment still rising at 4.7% over 12 months is consistent with ongoing vertical and horizontal building, including warehouses. That is not the same as a published occupancy rate. Industrial demand can be strong while a particular 2022 vintage bulk warehouse still offers free rent.

Office is harder. Information jobs are shrinking. Financial activities are slightly down. Professional and business services are up 3.6%. Downtown Fort Worth and the suburban office nodes around highways will split between users who still need a regional headquarters and a large remote capable share of the 52,871 city residents who already work from home (ACS 2024). No public office vacancy percent is published for Fort Worth.

Retail follows rooftops and income. ACS 2024 counts 362,403 households, median income $82,503, and 12.22% of households at $200,000 or more. Grocery anchored centers that serve growing north and west rooftops have a demographic backdrop. Discretionary retail near office cores has a weaker backdrop if downtown occupancy is soft. No public grocery anchored cap rate or occupancy figure is published. Outcomes vary by asset and are not assured.

Section 11Transactions and Capital Markets

Redfin reports 3,095 Fort Worth homes sold in June 2026, up from 2,947 in June 2025, with a sale to list ratio of 98.2%. No public 2025 or 2026 apartment, industrial, office, or retail transaction volume, median cap rate, or price per unit series is published for Fort Worth.

Capital markets context that is public and local is limited to inflation, jobs, and the for sale print. CPI U up 2.9% through July 2026 and division payrolls up 1.3% describe a cooling but not contracting real economy. Tarrant County GDP of $178.0 billion in 2024 says there is a large local capital base. It does not say what cap rate a 2022 vintage garden community trades at in 2026.

Debt markets, agency multifamily spreads, and life company industrial appetite are national, not city, and are outside the public local series used here.

Section 12Taxes

Texas has no state personal income tax. The operating tax that matters for real estate is the property tax, stacked across city, county, school district, hospital district, college district, and special districts. Tarrant Appraisal District appraises property and administers exemptions for 73 jurisdictions, per TAD’s public description of its role. Each taxing unit sets its own rate. TAD does not set the rate.

The City of Fort Worth adopted the following municipal property tax rates:

The adopted fiscal year 2026 city rate of $0.670000 per $100 of assessed value is the levy applied to TAD assessed value inside the city. The city states that this budget will raise $25,704,172 more property tax revenue than the prior year, a 3.37% increase, including $21,082,569 from new property added to the roll, and that maintenance and operations taxes on a $100,000 home rise by approximately $2.42. School tax is usually the largest slice on a typical bill. City of Fort Worth and Tarrant County add their own levies. Extra territorial and municipal utility district style overlays can appear on the fringe. No public combined millage for a typical Fort Worth Independent School District parcel is published as a single official figure.

Texas homestead protections (residence homestead exemption and a limit on annual homestead appraisal increases under Texas Tax Code Chapter 23) apply to owner occupied homesteads, not to investment property. That distinction is central. A landlord does not receive the homestead appraisal cap. Assessed value on a rental can move with the market, subject to protest at TAD. Budgeting a 2% tax growth like a homesteaded owner is a common underwriting error in Texas.

Texas does not levy a state real estate transfer tax. Closing costs are still material (title, survey, and lender items), but there is no state deed tax line. Businesses may owe Texas franchise tax, which is separate from property tax and is not estimated here.

The usable tax facts are the city rate of $0.670000 per $100 of assessed value for fiscal year 2026, the TAD appraisal role, and the homestead versus investment property distinction. No fake combined rate is stated.

Section 13Insurance

No public average homeowners premium, average landlord premium, or year over year premium change is published for Fort Worth or Tarrant County. The Texas Department of Insurance regulates admitted carriers and publishes statewide market data. The Insurance Information Institute reports a Texas statewide average homeowners premium of $2,146 in 2021, which is a state figure, not a Fort Worth or Tarrant County 2026 print.

Physical context is still relevant. Fort Worth is inland North Texas, not a Texas Windstorm Insurance Association coastal zone. The local insurance conversation is hail, convective storm, tornado, and, along the Trinity River and its forks, flood. Flood insurance is a National Flood Insurance Program and private flood question, parcel by parcel, using FEMA maps, not a citywide average. Hail deductibles on commercial and landlord policies in North Texas are often percentage deductibles rather than small dollar deductibles, which can turn a fully insured garden community into a large uninsured retention after one storm. No public deductible percent is published for Fort Worth landlord policies.

City of Fort Worth risk management materials describe the city’s own mix of commercial and self insurance for municipal property. That is the city’s program, not a private landlord market index.

Section 14Landlord Tenant and Regulatory Environment

Residential tenancies in Texas are governed primarily by Texas Property Code Chapter 92. Notice periods, repair timelines, and security deposit deadlines are set in that chapter and should be read in the statute itself rather than restated here without a line by line extract. The code exists, it is state law, and it is the starting document for any leasing platform.

Texas does not operate a statewide rent control regime. Local governments do not have a general, standing authority to cap rents the way some coastal cities do. That is a structural landlord advantage relative to California or New York City. It is not permission to ignore habitability, lockout, utility, and security deposit rules, which Chapter 92 does regulate. Eviction is a justice court process. No public Fort Worth eviction filing count or median days to possession figure is published.

Fort Worth and Tarrant County can still affect deals through zoning, subdivision, drainage, short term rental rules, and building codes. Those are local ordinances, not Chapter 92. No public Fort Worth short term rental unit count or inclusionary zoning mandate total is published.

Fair Housing Act and Texas fair housing rules apply. This document is not legal advice.

Section 15Infrastructure

Fort Worth’s economic geography is a highway, rail, and airport diagram. Interstate 35 West is the north south spine. Interstate 30 and Interstate 30’s downtown mix serve the east west core. Interstate 20 and Interstate 820 loop freight around the south and west. State Highway 121 and State Highway 183 connect toward the airport. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport sits on the Tarrant and Dallas line and is the passenger and belly cargo giant. Fort Worth Alliance Airport is the industrial aviation and freight node that made the far north a warehouse district.

BNSF Railway is headquartered in the city and is a reason industrial users cluster here. Trinity Metro operates local bus and TEXRail commuter service toward the airport. ACS 2024 commute behavior says the system is still a car city.

Public transportation’s share is under 1%. Underwriting that depends on transit oriented rent premiums should be limited to stations that actually exist, not to a hoped for network.

The 15 to 29 minute band is the largest. A large tail still sits beyond 45 minutes (83,696 workers). Congestion on Interstate 35 West is a known operating constraint. No public 2026 Texas Department of Transportation average annual daily traffic count is published for Interstate 35 West in Fort Worth.

Water, wastewater, and drainage are city utilities issues on the growth edge. Far north and far west plats can carry impact fees and offsite costs that downtown infill does not. No public citywide impact fee is published as a single dollar figure. Panther Island and Trinity River downtown work is a long running public infrastructure theme. No public current dollar amounts or delivery dates are published.

Section 16Climate and Physical Risks

National Weather Service Dallas Fort Worth climate normals for 1991 to 2020 at the official Dallas Fort Worth climate station are the public temperature and precipitation tape for the metro.

No public 100 year precipitation depth is published as a single Fort Worth city figure. The climate regime is humid subtropical North Texas: hot summers, severe thunderstorms, hail, tornado risk, occasional winter ice, and riverine flood along the Trinity River system. That qualitative description is not a substitute for FEMA flood panels or a civil engineer’s drainage letter.

FEMA flood maps are the parcel tool. Properties in or near the floodway and 1% annual chance floodplain along the Clear Fork, West Fork, and main stem will carry flood insurance and fill constraints. Upland north Fort Worth industrial sites can still have local playa and drainage issues without being in a mapped floodway. No public citywide share of parcels in the floodplain is published.

Hail and convective wind are the insurance market’s Fort Worth problem more than hurricane storm surge. Heat affects operating expenses (air conditioning loads on 1980s gardens with original condensers) and habitability during outages. Drought and water restrictions can appear in North Texas summers and would show up as city ordinance, not as a NOAA number in this document.

Wildfire is not the primary metro risk that it is in the Hill Country or Trans Pecos, but grass fire on the rural edge of Parker and Wise counties is not zero. No public FEMA National Risk Index score is published as a single Tarrant County figure.

Section 17Neighborhoods and Submarkets

Fort Worth is not one rent. It is a set of submarkets whose public identity is clearer than their public statistics. ACS in this document is citywide. Neighborhood numbers below are qualitative because no public ACS slice by neighborhood is published.

Downtown and the immediate core (Sundance Square, the Water Gardens, county courts, and adjacent lofts) are the small high rise and adaptive reuse book. They depend on office workers, courthouse traffic, hotels, and entertainment. With information jobs shrinking and 52,871 city residents already working from home, downtown apartments depend on urban amenity, not on an assumed office walking crowd.

The Cultural District, West 7th, and the Near Southside are the inner west and south lifestyle band: museums, restaurants, Texas Christian University demand, and medical users around the hospital district. They support higher rents than the east side, but no public neighborhood median rent is published.

The Stockyards and north side mix tourism, older housing, and industrial. Tourism supports retail and hospitality. It does not automatically support Class A garden rents.

Alliance and far north Fort Worth are the growth machine: warehouses, new single family, and new apartments tied to Alliance Airport and the interstate. This is where 2021 to 2024 permits have been associated with new rooftops. It is also where lease up risk can concentrate if 2024's 18,858 county authorizations are completed as competing units.

East Fort Worth and older south side tracts hold more 1950s stock (the city has 40,765 units built from 1950 to 1959) and more value add, smaller rent checks, and operating intensity. West and southwest corridors toward Benbrook and the Chisholm Trail Parkway skew newer and more owner occupied.

TCU, the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Texas Wesleyan, and Texas A&M University School of Law create student and medical renter pockets. No public bed count or student housing occupancy figure is published.

Because neighborhood statistics are missing, site selection should start with TAD parcel data, school district boundaries, flood panels, and a rent comp set, not with this map.

Section 18Opportunities

The public record supports a few educational, non exhaustive observations.

First, the single family rental stock is already large (46,040 renter occupied detached units). Professionalization, build to rent, and scattered site aggregation have a real occupied inventory to underwrite against, at ACS owner median values of $330,500 and Redfin sale medians near $339,815 rather than coastal prices.

Second, logistics is not a theme, it is the largest payroll supersector. Industrial and last mile product near Alliance, the airport, and Interstate 35 West sits on 291,400 trade, transportation, and utilities jobs. Occupancy and rent must still be proven with a current brokerage run.

Third, supply is cresting at the permit level. Tarrant authorizations fell from 18,858 in 2024 to 13,924 in 2025. If that lower permit rate were to hold while division jobs kept growing at about 1.3%, the 9.5% rental vacancy could improve into 2027 and 2028; that is a timing scenario, not a forecast or a 2026 lease up argument, and it is not assured.

Fourth, household incomes are not poor at the median ($82,503) and 12.22% of households report $200,000 or more. Grocery anchored and necessity retail that tracks rooftops has a demographic backdrop as the far north adds housing; occupancy and rent are not assured.

Fifth, Texas property rules do not cap investment property appraisals the way they cap homesteads, but they also do not cap rents. Operators who can manage tax protests and storm deductibles may retain more of any operating upside; no particular occupancy, rent, or return outcome is assured.

None of these points is a recommendation to buy.

Section 19Risks

Rental vacancy at 9.50% is the headline risk for new multifamily. Deliveries from the 2024 permit spike are still in front of the market. Concessions are a plausible 2026 outcome even if no public concession weeks figure is published.

Information and financial payrolls are shrinking. An office heavy thesis is fighting the BLS print. Manufacturing is slightly down, so aerospace is an anchor, not a growth engine, in the latest 12 months.

Rent burden is already high: 42,998 renter households spend 50% or more of income on gross rent. Pushing asking rents without wage growth raises delinquency risk.

Property tax on non homestead real estate can move with values and with school district rates. The published city rate is $0.670000 per $100 of assessed value for fiscal year 2026. The remaining risk is that school and overlapping district levies are large, volatile relative to a homestead, and must be modeled from the bill.

Insurance, especially hail, can reprice net operating income faster than rents. No public Fort Worth or Tarrant premium index is published, which is itself a diligence flag.

Climate: flood along the Trinity, heat, and convective storm are real. The public normals are a 66.6 F annual mean temperature and 37.01 inches of annual precipitation at Dallas Fort Worth. No public FEMA parcel share is published, so flood exposure remains a parcel question, not a citywide percentage.

No public Fort Worth commercial occupancy rate or cap rate is published. Decisions that need those figures are not supported by this document.

Section 20Investor Implications

Read Fort Worth as a large, young, still expanding city with a logistics and aviation payroll, a majority single family stock, a 41.93% renter share, and a currently loose apartment vacancy rate. The educational implication is to match strategy to that tape.

Value add gardens and well located workforce product compete in a $1,630 median gross rent world with high existing burden. Expense control (tax and insurance) is more central to that tape than a luxury asking rent story.

New Class A multifamily is exposed to the supply cycle. 2025 permits are lower, 2024 permits were very high, and citywide rental vacancy is 9.5%. Capital that can lease through 2026 and 2027 is in a different posture than a short horizon strategy that needs occupancy on day one. No particular occupancy, rent, cash flow, or investment return is promised or assured.

Single family rental and build to rent align with the bedroom mix and with 46,040 existing detached renter households. Entry pricing around the ACS median of $330,500 and the Redfin sale median of $339,815 is the public starting point. Neighborhood selection and school district lines will drive rent more than the city median will.

Industrial and grocery anchored retail follow jobs and rooftops, but only with a current occupancy file.

Office requires a tenant and a building, not a city thesis.

This section frames. It does not allocate capital.

Section 21Conclusion

Fort Worth in 2026 is a million person city inside a still growing Tarrant County of 2,248,466 people, with 1,224,700 division payroll jobs, 4.6% unemployment, $82,503 median household income, $330,500 median owner value, $339,815 median sale price, $1,630 median gross rent, $2,077 average advertised rent, and 9.5% rental vacancy. Construction and logistics are hiring. Information is not. Housing supply had a huge 2024 permit year and a smaller 2025. The public record is strong on people, jobs, incomes, stock, vacancy, and current home sales. It is weak on cap rates, commercial occupancy, combined parcel tax rates, and insurance premiums. The city is large enough, and the public ACS and Redfin value prints sit below many coastal markets, to remain relevant as educational market context for accredited investors. Size and a lower public price print versus coastal markets are not the same as a wide open 2026 lease up, are not an offer or solicitation, and no particular investment return is promised or assured.