CRE Permanent in Killeen

Small multifamily, retail strip, self-storage, and service commercial, the property types that actually exist on this side of the metro. Killeen sits west of the post with the metro's lowest home values (mid-tier $220,742, June 2026) and lowest rents ($1,254, June 2026), and the commercial base around it is the same story: strip retail and service uses serving Fort Hood's 34,474 active-duty soldiers and 53,767 direct jobs, plus storage demand from a population that turns over on military orders. No metro-level CRE vacancy or cap-rate survey exists for Killeen-Temple, so a permanent quote here is built from your executed leases and tenant credit, not a published market cap rate. Bring the rent roll and the lease terms; that's what does the work.

Because the tenant is Baylor Scott & White and the VA, not a rotating cast of local businesses. Baylor Scott & White Health is the metro's largest private employer at 8,884 employees on the Temple Economic Development Corporation's own count, anchored by its Temple medical center, and the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System adds another 3,500 jobs in Temple. That's an institutional-grade tenant base for medical-adjacent commercial: an office, a medical retail pad, or a mixed-use building near that corridor is leasing to demand that doesn't evaporate in a downturn. No Killeen-Temple cap rate or vacancy figure exists to attach a number to that story, so we underwrite it qualitatively, on the lease and the tenant, not a market survey.

Yes, because it's the single largest, steadiest income source in the metro. The Texas Comptroller's 2025 installation study puts Fort Hood's output at $37.9 billion, with 53,767 direct jobs, 159,692 jobs supported metro-wide, 34,474 active-duty personnel, and 126,225 military retirees who still use the installation. That's federal payroll, not a single employer that can relocate. That is the case for long-term debt on a stabilized asset: tenancy here is unusually recession-insensitive because the largest paycheck in the county comes from Washington, not from a local industry cycle. It's a qualitative underwriting factor, not a cap-rate input, since no Killeen-Temple CRE cap-rate data has been published.

Take the time to actually stabilize before you refinance, because this market rewards patience over a rushed exit. Median list price was $289,000 in July 2026, down 3.4% year over year and 11.2% off the 2023 peak, with a median 72 days on market and roughly a third of active listings carrying a price cut. That's a flat, slow market, not a falling one, and it means lease-up or repositioning takes the time it takes rather than the time a pro forma wants it to take. A common path here is a bridge loan to carry a property through lease-up or repositioning, then a refinance into permanent debt once the rent roll is signed and the asset performs. We place both sides in-house, so the handoff from bridge to permanent doesn't require re-selling your file to a new lender.

Roughly 2% of assessed value in Killeen proper, and it moves meaningfully by city and by parcel. The Killeen investor stack (county 0.3128 + road district 0.0199 + city 0.7014 + Killeen ISD 0.8778 + Central Texas College 0.09 per $100, Bell CAD's 2025 table) works out to about 2.00%. Temple runs heavier at roughly 2.17%, driven by Temple ISD at 1.1372 against Killeen ISD's 0.8778, not by the city rate: Killeen's 0.7014 is actually the metro's highest. Investment property gets no homestead exemption and no appraisal cap, and Bell County MUD overlays run 0.783 to 1.000 per $100 on top of the base stack, so a parcel inside a MUD can push near or above 3%. Both Killeen and Temple raised city rates for fiscal 2026 (Killeen up 8.2%, Temple up 11.72%), so this is a rising line in your pro forma, not a falling one. Check the parcel's overlays on Bell CAD before you lock stabilized NOI, and talk to your CPA about how the stack runs across a long hold.