Sell Your Commercial Property In Plano, TX

Who rents in Plano

Plano is a high-income suburb with a large renter base. The Census Bureau's 2020–2024 American Community Survey counts 290,594 residents in 112,438 occupied homes, and 48,422 of those households, or 43.1%, rent. That is above the 39.9% renter share across the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro reported in the same survey. Plano's median household income is $112,253, about $22,000 above the metro median of $90,275.

The renters here live in apartments. According to ACS table B25032, 34,289 renter households, or 70.8% of Plano renters, live in buildings with five or more units, and 31.0% live in complexes of 50 units or more. Only 17.8% rent a detached house. In practice, Plano's rental market is a market of professionally managed complexes, and buyers compare any building you own against that institutional stock.

The employment base behind demand

Corporate offices drive Plano's renter demand. The city's corporate and regional headquarters list, updated in the second quarter of 2026, counts 613 companies with 77,396 employees. The largest are JPMorgan Chase with 11,133 employees, Capital One with 6,218, Toyota Motor North America with 5,143, PepsiCo Foods North America with 3,759 and Ericsson with 3,346.

Many of those jobs sit along the Dallas North Tollway at Legacy, where JPMorgan Chase and Toyota have their campuses, and Legacy West adds mid-rise apartments, retail and offices on the same blocks. A second cluster runs along US 75 on the east side. Collin College operates campuses in the city, adding students and staff to the renter pool. Office workers who transfer in for a corporate role often rent first, which gives Plano a steady flow of one- and two-bedroom leases at the upper end of the suburban market.

Rents and affordability

Median gross rent in Plano, including tenant-paid utilities, is $1,841 a month in the 2020–2024 estimates, $227 above the metro median of $1,614. The gap widens with unit size, as ACS table B25031 shows:

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates 2020–2024, via Census Reporter. Two details stand out. Studios rent for slightly more than one-bedroom units at the median, which reflects newer studio product in mixed-use districts such as Legacy West and Downtown Plano. And two-bedroom units command a premium of nearly $400 over one-bedrooms, a sign of demand from roommates and small families drawn by the school districts.

Higher incomes do not remove rent stress. Among Plano renters, 41.9% spend 30% or more of income on gross rent and 18.6% spend at least half. Those shares are lower than in many Texas cities, which supports collections, but they still cap how quickly renewals can rise.

The apartment stock

Plano has 117,686 housing units, and 37,960 of them, or 32.3%, are in buildings of five or more units according to ACS table B25024. Large complexes dominate: 16,663 units, 14.2% of all housing, are in buildings of 50 or more units, while 7,744 are in 5–9 unit buildings, 8,630 in 10–19 unit buildings and 4,923 in 20–49 unit buildings.

That size split matters for pricing. Buildings of 5 to 19 units hold 16,374 units in the city, a much smaller pool than the large complexes. Smaller properties trade among a different set of buyers, often local investors and 1031 exchange buyers rather than institutions, and they are usually valued on in-place income and condition rather than on amenity packages. Owners of these buildings compete for tenants on price and location, so proximity to Legacy, US 75 and DART rail carries real weight.

The stock is a product of Plano's growth in the 1980s and 1990s. The median home was built in 1993. The 1990s account for 28.6% of all units and the 1980s for 21.6%, while 18.4% predate 1980. Only 13.7% were built in 2010 or later and 1.8%, or 2,078 units, in 2020 or later. Much of the city's apartment inventory is therefore 25 to 45 years old, the age when roofs, HVAC systems, water heaters and plumbing come due. Those older complexes compete with newer product at Legacy and in Downtown Plano near the DART rail station, while Willow Bend has a mix of both. Allen, to the north, is a separate city and is not included in these figures.

Property taxes on apartment buildings in Collin County

Texas has no state property tax; the Comptroller explains that appraisal districts value property and local units set the rates. Collin Central Appraisal District appraises Plano apartments at market value each year, and there is no separate assessment ratio for rental property. The Collin County Tax Assessor-Collector's 2025 rate summary lists these rates per $100 of value:

• City of Plano: $0.437600
• Plano ISD: $1.039550
• Collin County: $0.149343
• Collin College: $0.081220

For a property in Plano ISD those add up to about $1.71 per $100, or roughly 1.7% of appraised value. A building appraised at $3 million would owe about $51,200 a year before any exemptions. That is lower than the combined rates in Dallas County cities, but it applies to higher values. Parcels in other school districts that serve parts of Plano pay different totals. In Allen, the same summary lists the city at $0.415400 and Allen ISD at $1.125800.

The appraisal limit in Tax Code § 23.231 holds yearly increases in appraised value to 20% plus new improvements for non-homestead property valued at or below a threshold, $5 million for 2024 and indexed after that. It applies only after the owner has held the property on January 1 of a prior year and ends at sale. Many Plano complexes are worth more than the threshold. Owners can protest values by May 15 or 30 days after the notice is delivered, whichever is later, according to the Comptroller.

Landlord rules and local compliance

Plano runs a Multi-Family Rental Registration and Inspection Program that requires annual registration with a per-unit fee. The city states that an annual inspection is performed at every multifamily property older than five years with five or more dwelling units, and that notices of violation go to both the owner and the property manager. A buyer needs to take over the registration, and recent inspection results are part of due diligence.

Rent levels themselves are not regulated. Under Local Government Code § 214.902, a Texas city can adopt rent control only after finding a disaster-related housing emergency and getting the governor's approval. State law also sets the 30-day deposit refund deadline in Property Code § 92.103, with penalties for bad-faith retention in § 92.109, and a three-day notice to vacate before an eviction filing in § 24.005 unless the lease says otherwise.

What this means if you own a building here

A Plano apartment owner sells into a market with high incomes, deep corporate employment and a renter base that lives almost entirely in multifamily buildings. The trade-offs are an aging 1980s and 1990s stock that faces newer competition, a tax bill of about 1.7% of value that resets toward the price after a sale, and an annual city inspection that buyers will check. Clean inspection history and documented capital work usually show up directly in pricing.

To test a price, start with our cap rate calculator, and if you plan to sell and reinvest, review the 1031 exchange calculator and capital gains tax calculator. Skyline Capital Investments buys 5+ unit buildings across Plano, including Legacy West, Downtown Plano, Willow Bend and nearby Allen. Our seller page explains the process.