While San Antonio’s apartment market tends to fly under the radar, diving deeper into some key fundamentals provides a better picture of just how well this commonly overlooked market is doing. One big factor to keep in mind here is that San Antonio has been a national supply leader, with an apartment base that has grown by a stunning 31.9% over the course of the past decade. Thus, while San Antonio is still the smallest major apartment market in Texas, the existing base is now rivaling that of Fort Worth. Still, even with all this new supply, demand in San Antonio has managed to keep up, pushing occupancy to a peak of 96.3% in October. While still trialing U.S. norms, that occupancy showing benefited from one of the biggest boosts nationwide, as occupancy climbed 240 basis points in the past year. Even occupancy in the market’s Class A stock, which is contending with considerable competition from all the new product delivered recently, is doing well, with a rate that matches the market norm of 96.3%. Operators in San Antonio are taking advantage of current trends and raising rents at a record pace. Effective asking prices climbed 13.5% year-over-year as of October. This is an incredible feat for a market where the previous decade peak was much more modest at 4.5% in 2011.
