📈 The 15 fastest-growing cities in the U.S.

👋 Hello, Best Ever readers!

In today’s newsletter, Texas explodes, ICE keeps raiding, loans stabilize, young buyers spurn real estate, and much more.

📩 Still stuck flipping houses or chasing low-margin single-family deals? It’s time to scale. Join us for Apartments 101: How to Purchase Your First (or Next) Apartment Building in the Next 180 Days to learn how real investors are building serious income with bigger assets.

▶️ Missed our free workshop — The AI Investor Magnet? Watch the replay and discover how top investors are using AI to attract more capital, find better deals, and grow faster … with less effort.

Let’s CRE!

🗞️ NO-FLUFF NEWS
CRE HEADLINES

🥶 ICE Impact: ICE raids are stressing Chicago building managers as frightened workers miss shifts and residents skip rent payments, forcing owners to delay repairs and consider rent increases while 30-40% of contractors avoid job sites amid widespread immigration enforcement.

🏦 Loans Stabilize: Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase report improving CRE loan quality as office valuations stabilize, with Wells Fargo cutting office loans 18% YoY to reduce risk while lowering nonaccrual loans and JPMorgan posting steady growth.

💾 AI Bubble Watch: Data center leaders dismiss AI bubble warnings despite tech companies spending $400 billion this year on infrastructure, arguing demand outpaces supply with credit-grade tenants backing most projects, unlike the speculative dot-com era, though rising debt introduces new risks.

🏬 The New RTO: Retail-to-office conversions are gaining traction as developers transform aging malls and big-box stores into flexible workplaces in cities like Dallas, Cleveland, and Minneapolis, with spacious floorplates and high ceilings offering design advantages despite mechanical system challenges.

🧒 Youth Movement: Young buyers turn to stocks over homeownership as the median first-time buyer age climbs to 38 and market share drops to 24%, with 37% of 25-year-olds holding investment accounts in 2024 compared to 6% in 2015.

🏆 TOP STORY
TEXAS DOMINATES LIST OF FASTEST-GROWING CITIES

If you're not building in Texas, you're missing the party. Twelve of the nation's 15 fastest-growing cities are in the Lone Star State, according to RealPage, and more than half are in the Dallas market alone.

The U.S. logged 2.6% population growth from 2020 to 2024, but these Texas cities posted exponentially higher gains. Fulshear, west of Houston, led the nation with 210% growth. Dallas suburbs dominated the rankings, with cities in the Frisco, Allen-McKinney, and Rockwall submarkets all posting dramatic population increases.

Here are the top 15 fastest-growing cities:

1. Fulshear (Houston): 210% growth, from 17,600 to 54,600 residents

2. Celina (Dallas/Frisco): Nearly tripled, from 17,800 to 51,700 residents

3. Princeton (Dallas/Allen-McKinney): More than doubled, reaching 37,000 residents

4. Royse City (Dallas/Rockwall): 92% growth

5. Melissa (Dallas/Allen-McKinney): 83% growth

6. Anna (Dallas/Allen-McKinney): 82% growth

7. Forney (Dallas/Kaufman County): 61% growth

8. Manor (Austin/East Austin): 53% growth

9. Hutto (Austin/Round Rock-Georgetown): 52% growth

10. Haines, FL (Lakeland-Winter Haven): 51% growth

11. Saratoga Springs, UT (Provo-Orem-Lehi): 50% growth

12. Fate (Dallas/Rockwall): 49% growth

13. Georgetown (Austin/Round Rock-Georgetown): 48% growth

14. Amherst, MA (Springfield): 47% growth

15. Prosper (Dallas/Frisco): 44% growth

Apartment development tracked the population surge closely. Eight of the 10 submarkets containing these fast-growing cities ranked among the top 25 nationally for inventory growth from 2020 to 2024. Most saw apartment stock increase 60-90%, led by East Austin at 87%.

The 10-year numbers are even more pronounced. Frisco posted 238% apartment inventory growth, followed by Rockwall at 234%. East Austin added 155%.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Texas suburbs are absorbing population growth at rates that dwarf the national average, and multifamily developers are responding with unprecedented construction activity. If you’re looking for markets where demographic momentum and development opportunity are most clearly aligned, Texas wins.

📩 YOU’RE INVITED!
READY TO LEVEL UP BEYOND FIX & FLIP?

Flipping houses is busywork. Single-family rentals? You might squeak by with $100–$200/month.

This time, let’s aim higher.

📅 Join us alongside Michael Blank for Apartments 101 and discover how to lock in your first apartment deal in the next 180 days, even if you don’t have years of experience or millions in capital.

Here’s what you’ll walk away with:

• Why multifamily is the real long-term winner in real estate (no, it’s not just hype)

• What drives the numbers behind profitable apartment deals (and how to analyze them)

• Syndications demystified — how they really work, and how you can use them

• 2 common myths holding investors back — and how to crush them

• 3 proven scaling tactics to close your first apartment building in 6 months

💰 CRE BY THE NUMBERS
CAP RATES HOLD, OFFICE RETURNS TO NYC, AND MORE

📊 6.80% 

Net lease cap rates held steady at 6.80% nationally in Q3, with retail flat at 6.57%, industrial compressing to 7.20%, and office rising to 7.90% as overall inventory declined 0.5%. Institutional investor demand remained resilient despite elevated borrowing costs.

📍 23.2M SF 

Manhattan leased 23.2M SF of office space in the first nine months of 2025, the largest amount in 19 years, with 143 leases signed above $100 PSF already exceeding 2024's total. Vacancy remains at 14.8% while Class B buildings recover occupancy five times faster than the national rate.

💰 $40 Billion 

A BlackRock-led consortium agreed to acquire Aligned Data Centers for $40 billion in one of the largest data center transactions on record, marking the first deal for the AI Infrastructure Partnership formed to invest up to $30 billion in AI infrastructure and energy.

📈 30% Growth 

CRE lending is forecast to grow 30% in 2025 and 35% in 2026 as private investors drove 59% of deal flow in H1 2025. Banks are easing standards with LTV ratios rising to 56% for nonresidential properties while borrowing costs fall into the low-to-mid 6% range.

🏘️ DEAL OF THE WEEK
2X VALUE AND A 1.7X EQUITY MULTIPLE DESPITE PAUSED DISTRIBUTIONS

Lane Kawaoka and the team at The Wealth Elevator doubled the value of this property and delivered a 1.7x equity multiple to investors over four years despite having to pause distributions in a depressed cap-rate environment.

Here's how they did it 👇

🏢 Property details: This 96-unit Class B/C multifamily property, located in Huntsville, Alabama, was purchased in May 2021.

💸 Finances: The property was purchased for $4.8 million, and the team raised $2.5 million in equity. They also secured a $4 million loan at 3.5% fixed interest. This was long-term fixed debt with no refinance risk during the hold period.

💼 Business plan: The team executed a light-to-moderate value-add reposition of the property while improving operations and curb appeal. This included upgrading unit interiors upon turnover (flooring, fixtures, and appliances), repainting and sealing the parking lot, resurfacing the pool, and replacing signage, pool furniture, and dumpster enclosures. They also transitioned property management to The Hawthorne Group in March 2022 to improve collections and streamline operations.

💪 Biggest Challenge: Navigating rising interest rates and buyer financing delays during the 2024–25 market correction. Dispositions were taking 2-3× longer than normal to close. Despite a softer pricing environment, the team executed a successful exit by staying operationally strong and maintaining near-full occupancy.

🍾 Results: The property was sold in September 2025 for $8.736 million, which resulted in 1.7x equity multiple, 14–16% annualized IRR, and 8% preferred returns for investors. Distributions were paused 2023-24 to preserve liquidity and fund capital projects, but the team averaged 5-7% cash-on-cash during stabilized years, and the property still exceeded expectations in a depressed cap-rate environment.

👉 If you have a deal you’d like to share with us, please email us here.

▶️ GET THE REPLAY
THE AI INVESTOR MAGNET

The AI revolution in CRE is here. Learn how to harness it to grow your portfolio and streamline your investor pipeline.

In this free session, Marcin Drozdz (who has raised nine figures using an AI-powered system) pulls back the curtain on the exact tools and workflows he uses.

You'll discover:

✅ The AI tech stack that identifies high-potential investors before they're actively looking

✅ Automated workflows that build trust and credibility while you sleep

✅ The "Investor Attraction Algorithm" that scores and categorizes leads by capacity

✅ Real case studies: How newcomers closed seven figures in their first 90 days

✅ Why this works in any market condition or deal type