How We Get Our Dallas Rent Numbers

Where the numbers come from

Every Monday afternoon we pull the asking rents, available apartments and move-in specials for about 1,800 Dallas-Fort Worth apartment communities. The check runs on its own. Every area page, this report and the pages linked to it are rebuilt from it the same day. Each page shows the date of the pull it uses.

Prices change daily, and our weekly numbers can lag a day or two behind a property's own site. Before you apply, we look up each building's screening rules and tell you what we find. Confirm the rent and the special with the property before you sign.

What counts as a rent

• Every rent on our area pages and reports is net effective rent: the listed rent with any firm move-in special spread evenly across the lease. Many communities take the free weeks off up front instead of lowering each month. Your bill is higher in the months you pay. The total over the lease comes out the same. This number lets you compare a building with a special against one without.
• For each community and size, we start from the lowest price listed for an apartment marked available. When a floor plan shows available apartments but lists none, we use the plan's starting price.
• A floor plan with no available apartments doesn't count.
• "Lowest" or "Cheapest" is the cheapest community in the area, net effective. "Typical" is the middle community's net effective starting rent (the median). "Middle half" is the range the middle 50% of communities start in.
• Rent per square foot is the net effective starting rent divided by that home's size, and the typical figure is the median across communities.
• We leave out income restricted and tax credit communities, 55+ and senior communities, and student housing. We leave out floor plans whose names mark them as income capped. We drop any community whose listings haven't been updated in 30 days, too.

How we treat specials

• A special counts if it was updated in the last 45 days and its stated deadline hasn't passed.
• Only firm offers are counted, such as "8 weeks free" or "1 month free on a 15 month lease". We spread the free weeks, and any firm dollar credit off rent, over the lease: rent × (1 − free days ÷ lease days) − credit ÷ lease months. When the special names a lease length, we use it; otherwise 12 months. Eight weeks free on a $1,500 rent and a 12 month lease works out to about $1,270 a month.
• Some offers say "up to", cover only select homes, or give a range. Some depend on the size or on signing fast. We show those as written and never count them, so those homes appear at their listed rent. Fees, deposits and gift cards aren't rent, so they never count.
• The monthly figure is before fees. Community fees at many Dallas apartments add $75 to $250 a month, which our true monthly cost page covers.

Building class (A, B, C)

There's no official grading for apartment buildings. Brokers and data firms each use their own rule, so we publish ours and use it the same way on every page:

• Class A: built or renovated in 2015 or later, with a starting rent of $1.63 a square foot or more this week. That's more than the cheapest 40% of Dallas area communities charge (the 40th percentile).
• Class C: built before 1995 and not renovated since 2010.
• Class B: everything else with a known build year.

A new building priced well under the metro's rents falls into Class B. Some older buildings in pricey areas, such as converted towers downtown, rent above Class B buildings nearby. Class describes the building's age and finish, not whether it's a good deal.

How we draw areas

Each area page uses a center point and a radius that fits the neighborhood or city. Communities with an address in that city count too, out to 12 miles. When fewer than four communities are priced, the radius widens and the page says so. Areas overlap at the edges, so one community can count in two neighboring areas. The "new apartments" pages work a little differently: they put each community in its nearest area, so it's counted once.

On the budget pages, each area's count is the places that area's deal finder shows. Tap a count to open the finder on exactly those places. Every home counts at its net effective rent, so a $1,021 home with 8 weeks free on a 12 month lease (about $864 a month) counts under $900.

Week over week

We keep a dated copy of every week's numbers. "Since" columns compare this week's typical rent with the pull at least five days earlier. A change under $5 reads as no change. The trend charts plot the typical rent from each weekly pull.

New buildings

A community counts as new when it was built last year or later, including buildings still opening.

Who makes these pages

We wrote these rules, and we use them the same way on every page, every week. We are licensed Texas real estate agents brokered by Spirit Real Estate Group, TREC #562021. If a number looks wrong, tell us and we'll check it with the property.