The following Q&A was completed as part of our conversational Commercial Real Estate FAQ Interview Series, we hope you find it helpful.
While most investors and developers may know all about the growth occurring in Austin or Dallas, it’s those smaller niche markets that can really provide some excellent opportunities. Places like Tampa and Clearwater beach, or San Marcos in Texas are growing rapidly and creating plenty of investment and development potential. Getting into these niche markets allows you to get in on the boom.
Richard Wilson: And I know you guys are active in both Texas and Florida, many people have Dallas, Austin, on fast growing city lists, those are relatively obvious ones. Are there any niche cities or tertiary markets in the states of Florida or Texas that you think people, maybe, don’t realize how well they’re doing? Whether that’s Jacksonville, or Tampa, or somewhere else?
David Greer: So, I think a hidden one we’re seeing grow is San Marcos outside Austin, and Texas State University is there, there’s a lot of growth going on in that area. We’ll probably open that up now and people start flocking there, but I think there’s definitely going to be some good opportunity there with the growth of the University and a lot of things that they have going on. Sarasota, Clearwater Beach is another area that’s really taken off in the last couple years. And it seems like it’s hard to be on the front end of where these places are going to turn, but I think that with the migration of people we’re seeing out of different locations and different states, it’s going to be more noticeable in a quicker fashion than it has been historically. Because we haven’t seen this rate of change in geographic regions until this point. So there’s a lot of unknowns out there, but I think that you’re going to see a lot of population growth, job growth, in certain areas. And even the existing areas I think will continue to grow.
Chad Moss: Yeah, if you look at Dallas, for instance, there’s parts of the outside the city that you can walk into a new building at every turn. Within the last 3 years constructed, so there’s literally been towns within a city built overnight. Like a McKinney, that’s an interesting sign that you’re seeing right now.
Richard: Right, yeah. For sure.
