Real estate expert says Texas city has become a ‘major player’

Fort Worth, Texas, is not just an oil and gas city anymore, according to one real estate expert. 

The “kissing cousin to Dallas” is seeing a commercial real estate boom. 

“I think slow and steady continues to win the race,” Rogers Healy and Associates CEO Rogers Healy said on FOX Business’ “The Bottom Line.” 

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“It’s always just kind of done their thing at their own pace. But what started to happen is Fort Worth, maybe in large part because of TCU [Texas Christian University] football, has become a major player. And I think people are moving there.” 

In fact, Fort Worth added more residents than any other city in the country from July 2021 to July 2022, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. It is ranked as the No. 13 largest city in the U.S., with 956,709 people.  

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“Fort Worth is a major player,” Healy repeated, “and I think the commercial real estate market is a great benefactor because of that.” 

Compared to other major cities, Fort Worth has the “ability to expand,” Healy noted in response to Dagen McDowell pointing out that it put real estate developers in a position where they could meet the demands of specific businesses after keeping office vacancy rates steady and low during the pandemic.    

Healy also believes its ability to expand westward provides an opportunity for commercial real estate and growth that Dallas doesn’t have.

He noted that where Dallas expands north and eastward, they can only expand so far, whereas Fort Worth can expand westward “really for miles and miles away from downtown,” giving companies opportunities to bring headquarters west.

What’s more, Fort Worth has “benefited greatly” from businesses like Toyota moving from other high-tax states like California, and is even seeing “some entrepreneurship take off at record paces.”

“We’re seeing, you know, a different kind of expansion of Fort Worth,” Healy pointed out.

“People that historically would go to Silicon Valley or New York City or even, you know, places like Illinois, they’re moving to Fort Worth. And because of that, there’s job growth. And colleges like TCU… is giving kids a reason to actually stay there after they graduate because it’s not, again, the cliché real estate, oil and gas, you know, or law jobs,” he concluded. 

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