DFW Multifamily Performance Benchmarking Analysis

DFW three-asset comparison: Lakes at Lewisville is the laggard — weak retention, slow leasing, and a credit-stressed renter base are compounding. Rienzi is winning on occupancy but bleeding on trade-outs. 4000 Hulen is out-executing a submarket in freefall and sitting on unclaimed rent.

Occupancy (latest)	Occupancy 12mo ago	Submarket occupancy (latest)	Retention rate (T12)	Submarket retention	New-lease tradeout %	Submarket tradeout %	Days on market (signed, past 30d)	Submarket DOM	In-place rent/sqft	Submarket rent/sqft	Avg tenant FICO	Past-due rate
91.3%	93.3%	81.7%1	90.8%	65.8%1	+5.5%	+1.3%1	n/a	751	$1.63	$2.041	n/a	n/a
95.4%	90.8%	93.0%	76.3%	68.4%	-15.9%	+3.2%	243	83	$2.45	$2.38	744	4.6%
94.4%	96.3%	93.8%	63.1%	67.1%	-3.1%	-2.0%	179	70	$1.69	$1.71	622	16.7%

Lakes At Lewisville is the one that needs intervention, not just a comp check. Its 63.1% retention is the weakest of the three and actually trails its own submarket average (67.1%) — the only asset here losing tenants faster than the market around it. Days-on-market for recently signed leases is 179, 2.6x the submarket's 70 , and new leases are trading out negative (-3.1%) in a submarket that's itself soft (-2.0%) but not this soft. Layer in the tenant base: average FICO of 622 sits right at the subprime line, and 16.7% of tenant credit accounts are past due — nearly 4x Rienzi's 4.6% . That's not a market story; submarket occupancy actually rose 0.6pp over the trailing year while Lakes' own occupancy fell 1.9pp — a manager-attributable erosion of roughly 2.5pp net of the market move . The read: a credit-stressed resident base is driving turnover, and leasing isn't re-filling units fast enough once they turn — slow absorption plus a discounting posture on new leases. This is where the operational gap actually sits.

Rienzi's paradox: occupancy is winning, but the mechanism paying for it should worry you. Occupancy climbed from 90.8% to 95.4% over the year while its submarket (Uptown/Oak Lawn) fell from 96.0% to 93.0% — a genuine ~7.5pp manager-attributable gain . But new leases are trading out at -15.9% against prior tenant rent, while the submarket itself trades out positive (+3.2%) , and days-on-market for signed leases is 243 — nearly 3x the submarket's 83. Rienzi is buying its occupancy win by discounting hard at turn in a submarket where comps are actually pushing rent. With a wealthy, high-FICO (744) resident base that should be sticky at a fair renewal, a 76.3% retention rate (only modestly above the 68.4% submarket average) suggests renewals aren't being priced or timed well — tenants are leaving who shouldn't be, and the occupancy is getting backfilled at a discount rather than defended at the lease. That's a leasing/pricing execution gap, not a demand problem — the demand signal (submarket rent momentum) says this asset should be trading out positive, not negative.

4000 Hulen is the standout on execution, and it's leaving rent on the table because of it. Its submarket (Ridgelea) is in genuine freefall — occupancy cratered from 92.8% to 81.7% in a year, an 11.1pp collapse, almost certainly new-supply pressure given the pace. 4000 Hulen's own occupancy dropped only 2.1pp in the same window — a 9.1pp manager-attributable outperformance, the widest gap of the three — and retention of 90.8% is nearly 25pp above the submarket's 65.8% . That's a property holding its tenant base through a submarket that's losing residents to newer competition. The cost of that discipline: in-place rent runs $0.41/sqft below the submarket ($1.63 vs. $2.04), a ~$361/unit/month gap at the property's 881 sqft average — but asking rent is priced at parity with the submarket ($1,371 vs. $1,369 on a 1BR), so the gap is concentrated in the existing lease book, not the marketing price. With retention this strong, renewals aren't being pushed toward market — that's the classic tension: the same discipline that's protecting occupancy is also suppressing loss-to-lease capture. Separately, its 22.8% property-tax load (vs. Lakes' 13.9%) is compressing NOI margin to 43.4% — that's an assessment/jurisdiction fact, not a leasing issue, worth a tax-appeal look but not a manager mark.

What's driving the split: Lakes' problem is tenant quality plus leasing velocity — a subprime-adjacent renter base cycling out faster than the team is filling behind them. Rienzi's problem is pricing discipline at renewal — good demand, undisciplined execution at the lease event. 4000 Hulen's "problem" is the good kind — a resilient, retention-driven asset with unrealized rent sitting in the existing lease book.

Next 30 days: Push a renewal-pricing audit at Rienzi — with 744 FICO and a submarket trading out positive, that -15.9% tradeout should not exist. At Lakes, tighten the leasing funnel (179 days is the number to watch weekly) and get eyes on the delinquency trend before it becomes a bad-debt problem. At 4000 Hulen, start pricing renewals toward the $2.04/sqft submarket mark on the next wave of expirations — the retention cushion can absorb it.