Key Take Aways
• Kimber Davison, the Host and Champion of Dallas REAL Professionals, shared that her office had gotten to 85% occupancy but with the current spike in COVID-19 cases in Texas, they have scaled back to 60% along with the strict guidelines of wearing masks, social distancing, etc.
• Court hearings and Mediations have been held via Zoom and there are currently a few Arbitration cases also planned for Zoom meetings.
• HUD has slowed down closings because they are now asking for a COVID Feasibility Study on current projects in order to close on the loans.
• The regional economy is starting to see a comeback overall but there is still a long way to go to get back to where we were “pre-COVID.
• The number of unemployed in the DFW area from January 2019 through April 2020 shows a HUGE increase due to enforcing “shelter in place” and the labor force took a huge hit. The employment data shows that the numbers have increased from 120,000 unemployed people to 470,000 people in the DFW market who are currently unemployed.
• Rent growth in the DFW area have remained stable and DFW is currently holding up better than anticipated.
• To date, the industrial side of things have shown to be “immune to the Pandemic & Recession”. Since January they have seen 47 leases, including Amazon signing a 1,000,000 sq. ft. space in the DFW Commerce Center on the eastside of the airport. In the past 12 months DFW has absorbed more space than Chicago and Atlanta combined.