Corpus Christi is the Nation’s Worst Apartment Occupancy Performer

A small Texas beach town located along the Gulf of Mexico is the nation’s worst apartment occupancy performer. Corpus Christi occupancy fell to 90.9% as of January, according to data from RealPage Market Analytics. That’s the worst performance among the nation’s largest 150 apartment markets and the worst showing this market has seen since August 2017. Occupancy came down by 350 basis points (bps) in the past year, which was a much deeper decline than the one seen in the U.S. overall (270 bps). Except for a brief stint in 2012 through 2013, Corpus Christi apartment occupancy has generally trailed the national average over the course of the past decade, so high vacancy is not too surprising here. But after apartment operators increased rents notably in 2021, occupancy came down even faster than normal, following a similar trend seen along other Gulf Coast markets.