Sell Your Commercial Property Fast In Dallas, TX

Who rents in Dallas

Dallas is a renter-majority city. The Census Bureau's 2020–2024 American Community Survey counts 1,307,930 residents in 533,915 occupied homes, and 307,300 of those homes, or 57.6%, are rented. Owners hold the remaining 226,615. The city's median household income is $70,518.

That renter share is well above the region's. Across the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro, the same survey puts renters at 39.9% of households, and metro median household income is higher, at $90,275. Dallas proper is where the region's apartment demand concentrates, and it is also where incomes are tighter.

The demand base is anchored by large institutional employers. UT Southwestern Medical Center reports more than 25,000 employees and an operating budget of $6.5 billion, and its campus anchors the Southwestern Medical District next to Oak Lawn. Medical residents, nurses, lab staff and graduate students are a steady source of renters for nearby buildings. Downtown and Uptown add corporate and financial-services employment, and Southern Methodist University adds a student and young-professional population on the north side.

Rents and affordability

Median gross rent in Dallas, which includes utilities paid by the tenant, is $1,472 a month in the 2020–2024 estimates. That is below the metro median of $1,614 and below the medians in the neighboring cities named on our Dallas–Fort Worth page: Irving at $1,619, Garland at $1,641 and Grand Prairie at $1,629. In other words, the core city is the relatively affordable part of the region for renters, which helps older buildings keep occupancy when newer suburban product competes on finishes.

The bedroom-level detail in ACS table B25031 shows how compressed the city's rent ladder is:

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates 2020–2024, via Census Reporter. A studio and a one-bedroom rent for nearly the same median in Dallas, and the gap between a two- and three-bedroom is under $60. For an owner, that means unit mix matters less to top-line rent than location and condition do, and that adding bedrooms through renovation rarely pays the way it can in the suburbs.

Affordability is the limit on pushing rents. In the city, 49.2% of renter households spend 30% or more of income on gross rent, and 23.5% spend at least half. Buildings that serve that half-burdened group carry more turnover and collection risk, and buyers underwrite it.

The apartment stock

Dallas has 590,237 housing units, and ACS table B25024 shows 276,668 of them, or 46.9%, in buildings of five or more units. That is close to half of all housing in the city. Large complexes of 50 or more units account for 116,568 units, while 49,734 units sit in 5–9 unit buildings, 62,799 in 10–19 unit buildings and 47,567 in 20–49 unit buildings.

Renters are concentrated in that stock. According to table B25032, 224,228 renter households, or 73.0% of all Dallas renters, live in buildings with five or more units. Only 13.0% of renters live in detached single-family houses, so the city's rental market is primarily an apartment market.

The buildings are old. The median year built across all Dallas housing is 1981, and 48.1% of units were built before 1980. The 1970s and 1980s together account for 30.8% of the stock, the era of the garden-style complexes found in neighborhoods such as Lake Highlands. Only 14.4% of units date from 2010 or later, so newer mid-rise product in places like Uptown and Deep Ellum is a small slice of the total. Older properties face plumbing, roofing, electrical and foundation work that buyers price into offers.

Property taxes on apartment buildings in Dallas County

Texas has no state property tax. The Comptroller explains that local appraisal districts value property and local units levy the tax, so a Dallas apartment owner pays the county, the city, the school district and several special districts on the same appraised value. Rental property is appraised at market value each year by the Dallas Central Appraisal District, with no separate assessment ratio for apartments.

The Dallas County Tax Office lists these 2025 rates per $100 of value for a property in the city and in Dallas ISD:

• City of Dallas: $0.698800
• Dallas ISD: $0.993835
• Dallas County: $0.215500
• Parkland Hospital: $0.212000
• Dallas College: $0.106575

Together that is about $2.23 per $100, or roughly 2.2% of appraised value each year before any exemptions. Parcels in other school districts that overlap the city pay different totals. On a building appraised at $3 million, that combined rate works out to about $66,800 a year.

Texas offers one limit. Under Tax Code § 23.231, non-homestead real property valued at or below a threshold, set at $5 million for 2024 and indexed after that, cannot have its appraised value rise more than 20% a year plus new improvements. The limit applies only after the owner has held the property on January 1 of a prior tax year, and it ends when the property is sold. A buyer of a smaller Dallas building should expect the next appraisal to move toward the purchase price. Owners can protest values each year; the Comptroller notes the deadline is generally May 15 or 30 days after the appraisal notice is delivered, whichever is later.

Landlord rules and local compliance

Dallas cannot cap rents. Local Government Code § 214.902 allows a Texas city to adopt rent control only if its governing body finds a housing emergency caused by a disaster and the governor approves the ordinance.

The city does run a mandatory apartment registration and inspection program. Under the Multi-Tenant Inspection & Response program, anyone who owns, operates or controls a multi-tenant property must register at least 30 days before the prior year's registration expires, or on taking ownership. Properties must be inspected at least once every three years, and since October 1, 2025 the annual registration fee is $13 per dwelling unit, counted on every unit on site whether occupied or not. Inspectors look for items such as inoperable air conditioning, water leaks, pest infestations, hot water below 110°F and unsound stairs or balconies, and the city publishes inspection scores by property. High-scoring properties can qualify for a self-certification track added to Chapter 27 of the city code in December 2021. Because registration is tied to whoever controls the property, a buyer has to register in its own name at closing.

State law governs deposits and evictions. A landlord must refund a security deposit within 30 days after the tenant surrenders the unit under Property Code § 92.103, and bad-faith retention can cost $100 plus three times the amount wrongly withheld and attorney's fees under § 92.109. Before filing an eviction for default, § 24.005 requires at least three days' written notice to vacate unless the lease sets a different period.

What this means if you own a building here

A Dallas seller is working with a deep renter pool, an old housing stock and a high, uncapped tax bill. Median rents below the metro level give older buildings room to stay full, but the 49.2% rent-burden figure limits how fast renewals can rise. The property tax bill moves with the market every year and, for buildings under the § 23.231 threshold, any cap disappears at sale, so buyers will underwrite taxes on their purchase price rather than your current bill. Expect them to look hard at your registration status and recent multi-tenant inspection scores as well.

Before talking to buyers, pull your last three appraisal notices and protest results, your registration receipts and your most recent inspection score, and document the age of roofs, plumbing and HVAC. You can test pricing with our cap rate calculator and compare Texas with other states on our rent control and property tax guide. Skyline Capital Investments buys 5+ unit buildings across Dallas, from Uptown and Oak Lawn to Deep Ellum and Lake Highlands, and our seller page explains how we underwrite.