Taylor County Rents

Taylor County Rents

The gentleman that cleans carpets for our rentals shared an interesting anecdote in early June.  He has a client who vacated her 4-bedroom house and moved to a small, 1-bedroom apartment.  She was leasing her furnished, 4-bedroom house by the bed, to four guys working at Abilene's new data center. At $1000/month/tenant in rent, she felt the opportunity to bank some rental income too good to pass up.

According to what one sees in the news, there are 2,200 workers currently working at the Stargate/Lancium/Crusoe data center in Abilene. When Phase II begins later this year, the number of workers on site will swell to 5,000. This demand on housing stock will be compounded by Vantage Data Centers plans for the Frontier Data Center, a $25B mega-campus in Shackleford County.  Also impacting the tight market are solar expansion and nuclear power developments in tiny Haskell, TX (pop. 3,067) where workers are commuting one hour to Abilene as the closest urban market with rental options.

RENTS

Average September 2025 rents for a 3-bedroom, 2-home  1  was  $1.34/sf, down 2 cents from August 2025 when 44 units rented at $1.36 per square foot. October 2025 rents for the same style rental rose to $1.43/sf.  In November 2025 rents settled back at $1.34/sf, duplicating September's performance and similar to average rent in August 2025. Is it possible that Abilene rentals have found their ceiling around $1.35/sf - 25 cents/sf higher than the same time last year?

On December 1, 2025, ten 3-bedroom, 2-homes were available for lease - the same number of rentals available at the start of November 2025.  In contrast, the 10 homes available at the outset of November had average rent of $1.51/sf. The 10 rentals available December 1 are offered at an average rent of $2.03/sf - a 52 cent gain over the prior month.  These pricey units are languishing on the market - they have an average days-on-market of 15 days.

If you broaden the search to all residential rentals - apartments, condos, & homes of every bedroom configuration - 54 rentals were available at $1.68 per sf.  Compare this to January 2025; average rent/sf was $1.11. Compare both those statistics to January 2024; average rent/sf was $1.09 (if viewing from your phone, you'll need to slide right to see the whole graph).  We've gone from steady to spiked on rent rates.

Look at the rent data between 2020 to the middle of 2022 1 .  Although the data has a few months of equivocation, it shows a steady climb in rents.  This period was a once-in-a-lifetime welfare grab with PPP money raining down on the country like manna and rents rose in response. From mid-2022 to January 2025 rent-per-month jiggles around that $1/sf mark until the influx of data center employment begins in earnest.

For additional context, consider inflation. Between 2015-2024, inflation increased, on average, 3.03% annually 2 . From January 2015 to December 2024, rent rose 4.7% annually - that covers inflation plus it give the landlord a raise, in real terms, of 1.4%. Since the outset of 2025, inflation has increased 2.6%.  Abilene rents in contrast, increased 7.6% between January 2024 to the current date 3 . Remove last year’s transactions to distill the impact of the data center on this year’s leases and you see a 29.8% increase in rent 4 .

Today, we left with two influences driving rents in the Abilene market: Stargate (I'm using July 2024 as the date this project took its current form ) and now the Frontier data center located at highways 351 & 604 where groundwork begain in September 2025. This impact is evident when one looks at rent for single-family homes; in January 2024, average monthly rent was $1,503 and twelve months later is was $1,499 in Jaunary 2025 - a $4/month drop or basically flat rent. Move forward 11 month to October 2025;  average rent rose to $1,821 - a $322/month gain and a $10 monthly rent gain over October 2025.

SUPPLY FOR RENT

For more context, consider days-on-market and rental inventory for rentals (you might need to slide the graph from left to right to see the whole series if viewed on your phone).  To define:

  • Median days-on-market measures how quickly rentals lease. the smaller the number, the better it is for landlords - there is less time between tenants and more rent. It's worse for tenants; they need to act fast if they want to secure a unit in a tight market.
  • Rental inventory looks at the same data in a slightly different way; it's calculated by looking at rental supply. If there are 100 rentals available and, each month, 20 get leased, you'd have 5 months - 100 rentals/20 leases - of inventory.

Both graphs compare Abilene to the entire MLS (multiple listing service) region - a 48,000 square-mile market that includes the behemoth Dallas/Fort Worth real estate market.  The data reveals:

  • In November 2025, median days-on-market for the MLS region was 41 (a gain of +4 over October 2025); replicating the trend of the prior month, Abilene was 7. Abilene rentals lease almost 6 times as faster when compared to the monster Metroplex market.
  • Throughout the COVID period when we were flush with PPP money, Abilene rental inventory tracked MLS inventory closely. After November 2022 when interest rates begin to rise,  Abilene rental inventory fell below the larger comparison market. It makes sense - Abilene incomes are lower than DFW incomes. Rentals become the default when higher interest rates push people from buying to renting in a lower income market. The separation between these two statistics is more pronounced after January 2025.  In January 2025; the NTREIS region had 2.6 months of inventory; Abilene had 1.6 months of inventory. Move forward to November 2025; now Abilene replicated the prior month with 0.4 months of inventory and for the last three months the NTREIS region has held steady with 2.9 months of inventory. To rephrase, Abilene has a seventh of the inventory compared to the larger market that is driven by Dallas/Fort Worth.
  • Abilene's November 2025 replication of October's days-on-market and rental inventory make one wonder: has our market stabilized against this external demand for rentals?

SUPPLY FOR SALE

A few more graphs worth noting, first a comparison the inventory of homes for sale in Abilene v. the region that includes DFW.  Until 2025, inventory of homes for sale in the larger MLS region and Abilene moved in the same direction.  This trend continued until January 2025 when the two inventory statistics separated - the same time that Stargate employees began arriving in earnest. Today, Abilene has less than half the inventory compared to the DFW market.

Next look at total sales, captured in the last two graphs.  In both graphs, you can see the conventional wisdom of residential real estate sales: people schedule moves in the summer when children are out of school or have more time. The larger regional market has already peaked for the season in May 2025 at 11,531 sales. Looking back to 2020, you can see peak annual sales have fallen at a decresing rate since July 2020 (15,760 sales) when we had easy access to COVID.

If we just look at Abilene, it appears we are still iterating our seasonal peak for 2025. In Abilene, seasonal peaks occured in June/July (with the exception of 2023 when the market was trying to comprehend 8.25% interest rates). In July 2025, there were 224 closed sales - a peak that surpassed the seasonal peak of 2024 (182 closed sales in June) and 2023 (192 closed sales in August) and surpasses to matching 2022 (218 closed sales in July).  We have to go back to 2021 and 3.25% interest rates to find activity that matches these sales. This is unlike the larger market where the seasonal peak has steadily decreased since the days of low rates plus COVID and the exhortation to "shelter-in-place".

Conclusion: investors are stepping into the residential real estate market to buy homes to meet short-term rental demand shaped by a temporary workforce building Abilene-area data centers and bucking trends for the region. Our brokerage has seen this first hand - last month, an investor used our brokerage to buy this house for around $200,000 plus the contents; this month we leased it for $3800 to a Lancium data center employee, all bills paid - that's $2.85/sf/mo in rent.

LANDLORD BEHAVIOR

  • Simplest answer: rent increases to match the market.
  • Landlords will be less forgiving as they weigh the opportunity cost of tolerating tenants that slow pay.  If tenants exhibit any behavior that is negative to a landlord's investment, they can expect non-renewal of their lease or eviction.
  • Some landlords will delay capital expenditures because they have a captive rental market. While short-term this may benefit a cash-strapped landlord, our rent trends have Abilene on the map as a place to build new rental units. You may effortlessly rent today when supply is inelastic, but investors from the world outside Abilene have us in their crosshairs, ready to respond to market conditions with shiny new rentals.
  • Landlords might be surprised to find someone other than their tenants leasing their rental unit. People will try to sublet units, furnish it, then put it on Airbnb. We’ve had multiple people approach us about subletting homes and apartments we manage - a formula for Airbnb horror stories and loss of control.
  • Landlords will pivot significantly into short-term rentals. I own 48, 475-sf units at two properties – nothing sexy by any stretch.  Last year I was leasing these for $575 with tenants paying all bills - $1.21 per sf.  Today, you can renew your lease for $675 - $1.42/sf - or I’ll rent the same unit for $1,150/month with a full-sized bed, sheets, towels, comforter, shower curtain from IKEA plus a bar of soap ($335.95 fixed costs) plus water, cable, and electric ($165-ish variable). I’m down by $25 v market rent in the first month to pay for the furnishings; after that I’m up $310/month in rent renting to skilled trades with 700+ credit scores.
  • Landlords will move to month-to-month leases.  No more fixed menu costs, rentals will be priced like lobster and based on catch price.

TENANT OUTCOMES

  • Simplest answer: rent increases to match the market.  According to everything you read and see, we are in year 1 of a 6-year build out.  If the pace continues as it has, this isn't going to change anytime soon.
  • Slow pay is never a good idea to maintain a healthy landlord/tenant relationship and it just got worse.  Tight inventory means landlords will be less tolerant of excuses about slow rent.
  • If leasing is your only option, negotiate a longer lease if you can.
  • If you rent is increasing, ask your landlord if it is possible to add someone to share in the rent expense. Most leases are explicit about guests or sublets - in a tight market it's unwise to commit lease violations that could jeopardize your leasehold.
  • Tenants will begin weighing the opportunity cost of buying.  Forgive this tired, old real estate agent cliche, but now is a fabulous time to buy - not because of rates, but to hedge against climbing rent. Investors also feel this is a good time to buy, too.  The graph of sales-price-per-foot compares Wylie ISD (green) to Abilene ISD (red) to the larger Metroplex market.   AISD prices have increased from $128/sf to $132/sf - a 0.03% gain. In the context of overheated rents, this makes homeownership look better. If you are looking at this market as an investor, the same applies.  If the mortgage looks steep relative to your current rent, be improvisational like the woman in my intro and find a few solid renters to help offset that mortgage.

LOOKING TO BUY?

Considering a rental property to take advantage of the gains in rents? Looking for an affordable single-family home to hedge against rising rents? Want to build something new to appeal to this surge in renters? What kind of real estate broker would I be if I didn't try to ply you with a few options. Consider these Barnett & Hill listings:

  1. Brookhollow Garden Apartments, 2600 Ivanhoe Ln, Abilene, TX is a 44-unit mix of 1-bedroom (14), 2-bedroom (25), and 3-bedroom (5) apartments.
  2. Sherwood Apartments, 2001 S 1st St W, Clyde, TX is a 12-unit mix of 2-bedroom (6) and 3-bedroom (6) units positioned midway between the Frontier data center and the Lancium data center.
  3. Winters Apartments, 100 N Grant, Winters, TX is a 12-unit apartment complex of 2-bedroom 1-bath units, 27 miles from the proposed Satoshi data center on Hwy 153 between FM 126 and CR 176 south of Sweetwater.
  4. 10803 Shirley Road is an undeveloped tract of land that is zoned MF (multifamily), MD (medium density) and SFR single-family residential adjacent to the Lancium facility.
  5. Go big with the purchase of this Taylor County portfolio with 321 acres adjacent to the Lancium facility plus another 326 acres just outside the city limits - 650 +/- acres in total.
  6. Want land proximate to a substation? 4141 Caldwell is a 100-acre tract and 4001 Caldwell is a 22.5 acre tract that border an AEP easement adjacent to the next substation one substation east of the Lancium campus.
  7. The City of Abilene began a successful infill housing program two years ago with prices capped at $203,000 - for tenants looking to buy, these are a welcome, fixed-price alternative to renting. Builders that participate in this program can't sell these homes as rentals; you must be a first-time homebuyer to purchase. I wouldn't be a real estate broker if I didn't add one last shameless plug: take a look at Northwood - a 13-home development of new-build homes all priced at $203,000.

John Hill
updated October 26 2025 9:31 am

1 Rental data was taken from NTREIS MLS for the last 10 years. It only looks at 3 bedroom, 2 bath rentals. Rationale: real estate agents are careless about entering correct data for multifamily units and duplexs. They'll report rent on one side of a duplex, but they are too lazy to look up the unit's actual square footage. This only becomes worse when they are entering information for a fourplex or apartment. The outcome: it results in grossly undervalued $/sf. Admittedly, we lose some value in only looking at 3 bed, two bath homes, but we remove much of the recording slop from the data by doing so, resulting in an incomplete, but consistent record that we can follow across time to evaluate changing market conditions.
3Percent change in rent was estimated from the natural log of per-sqft-rent regressed against time using rental obserations recorded since January 1, 2024.
3 Percent change in rent was estimated from the natural log of per-sqft-rent regressed against time using rental obserations recorded since January 1, 2025.
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