Very Little Apartment Vacancy in McAllen/Brownsville

The South Texas market of McAllen/Brownsville had a 2021 population of about 1,286,000, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, climbing a modest 0.2% year-over-year and about 3.1% in the last five years. And yet, apartments are pretty sparce here with an existing unit count of less than 36,800 as of December 2022, translating to about one apartment unit for every 35 residents. Like much of the U.S., apartment occupancy has waned here over the last several months to stand in line with its five-year average of 94.9%, according to data from RealPage Market Analytics. That makes McAllen/Brownsville one of the only markets in the U.S. with a population over 1 million and a vacant apartment count consistently under 2,000. As of December, about 1,866 vacant apartment units existed in the market, though vacancy has gotten as tight as 680 units in 2021. Construction here runs very low as the market has grown its existing unit base by less than 10% in the last decade. Meanwhile, employment sits at about 453,000 jobs, as of November, a solid 30,000 job increase from the February 2020 level before the pandemic.