Question 1

Why does the Alliance corridor matter to a spec builder?

Accepted Answer

Because the jobs came first. Far north Fort Worth holds the largest industrial construction pipeline in the country, 7.7 million square feet across 20 active projects as of April 2026, plus roughly 3.2 million square feet across four speculative projects inside city limits. AllianceTexas alone had $18.3 billion invested through 2025, $16.7 billion of it private and $1.6 billion in public infrastructure including roads and schools, and it hosts 590 companies and more than 66,000 employees. Hillwood is adding a single 1.2 million square foot speculative building inside a pipeline of about 8.2 million square feet under construction or in design. That is a payroll base rather than a forecast, and it is the most defensible reason lot absorption holds up in Northwest ISD and Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD. We fund land plus vertical up to 70% LTV and 85% of cost, subject to underwriting.

Question 2

How long does Fort Worth take to review a residential plan set?

Accepted Answer

Plan on roughly 7 to 8 days for a first residential submittal and about 3 days for corrections, with the city describing review generally as 3 to 8 days depending on complexity. Commercial work commonly runs 2 to 3 correction cycles. Those numbers come from a permit expediting vendor's published summary rather than a city performance dashboard, so treat them as a planning assumption and confirm with Development Services on your actual project. Fort Worth does offer expedited review, but we could not find a published turnaround time for it, so we do not underwrite to one. Bring us the review path you can document and we will size the term and the interest reserve around it.

Question 3

What should I budget for permit and impact fees in Fort Worth?

Accepted Answer

We do not publish a number, because the honest answer is that you have to pull it. Fort Worth assesses impact fees on new development and redevelopment under Chapter 395 of the Texas Local Government Code, and the current per-unit water and wastewater amounts live on the city's own fee schedule. That schedule is the only source we would use. Permit and plan review fees sit in the city's fee tables and in code section 2-321 and move on their own calendar. Third-party guides quote dollar figures for both, and enough of them disagree that we will not repeat one here. The city also does not publish an easily retrievable single-family permit count, so you will not get a build-volume statistic from us either. Get the written fee stack from Development Services before you close on the lot, and we will underwrite the cost basis it produces.

Question 4

How do Tarrant County property taxes hit me while I am building?

Accepted Answer

Budget roughly 2% to 2.5% of value a year, confirm it at the parcel, and never model off a neighbor's tax bill. The homestead exemption and the 10% homestead appraisal cap apply only to owner-occupants, so a spec build is taxed on full assessed value with neither. Texas Proposition 13 passed on November 4, 2025 and raised the school district homestead exemption to $140,000, which helps your buyer and does nothing for your carry. Aggregators put the Tarrant median effective rate anywhere from about 1.52% to 1.77%, while a typical Fort Worth stack of city, school district, county, college and hospital district runs somewhere around $2.24 per $100 of value. The range is the honest answer, and the Tarrant Appraisal District is the authority for your address. Build in Weatherford or Burleson and you are in Parker or Johnson County under a different set of districts entirely. Take the tax planning itself to your CPA.

Question 5

Is Fort Worth's growth strong enough to build spec into?

Accepted Answer

Yes on demand, no on appreciation. Fort Worth reached 1,028,117 residents in the July 1, 2025 Census estimate, added 19,512 people in a year and entered the top 10 largest US cities as of the May 2026 release. That is the second-largest numeric gain of any American city, behind Charlotte. It is a volume story, not a rate story: the fastest-growing cities by percentage in that period were smaller Texas suburbs like Celina and Fulshear, and anyone pitching Fort Worth to you on a percentage-growth ranking is quoting the wrong table. Pricing has been flat alongside it. Fort Worth-Arlington home prices were roughly flat year over year through May 2026 after small declines, and statewide in May 2026 the median was $340,000 with 5.3 months of supply and 64 days on market. Underwrite the spec to today's comparable sales and a realistic marketing period.

Question 6

Does a build-to-rent exit still work here?

Accepted Answer

The supply picture is moving in your favor, and that part we can source. North Texas is expected to deliver about 21,000 apartment units in 2026, down from roughly 30,000 in 2025 and a peak above 44,000 in 2024. In the first quarter of 2026 DFW absorbed about 8,500 units against about 7,500 delivered, Class A rents were up 3.2% year over year for a fifth straight quarter and Class B posted its first year-over-year increase since 2023, while Class C was still declining. The apartment wave that held single-family rents down through 2024 and 2025 is receding. That is a supply observation, not a rent forecast, so underwrite the hold at today's rent and treat anything above it as upside. One planning note if the exit is a rental in the city of Fort Worth: short-term rentals are barred in residential zoning districts under a restriction upheld at the district court level in March 2025 and since taken up on appeal, so the base case is a long-term lease and the appeal's status is worth confirming before you count on nightly income.

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