The Federal Reserve’s interest rate drop might boost confidence, allow for some refinancings and push some value-add acquisition deals forward.
But a 25-basis point reduction won’t be enough to move the needle on deal flow in Houston, which is already active due to distress, tariffs and some healthier fundamentals, bankers and brokers say.
“The market already kind of anticipated 25 basis points, so it’s not a big shock,” Lincoln Property Co. Executive Vice President Gabe Lerner said. “But two more cuts, Q1, Q2, hopefully things ramp back up, or get hotter.”
Wednesday’s interest rate reduction was the first since December. Unlike then, the Fed signaled that more reductions will follow. That could lead to more trades in Houston’s multifamily and retail markets, higher industrial values and a general turnover of capital that would allow for more development, Lerner said.
But lower interest rates won’t be a saving grace for struggling assets.
While office investment sales in Houston almost doubled 2024’s volume in half of 2025, many offices are selling at reset bases. Investors may have used cash for those purchases or accepted a higher interest rate because of the risk of investing in a less-than-ideal building, which won’t change, Lerner said.
For trophy buildings or very good properties in great locations, the Houston office market is still a good one, he said.
“But in general, it’s still going to be really rough,” Lerner said. “Twenty-five bps isn’t going to save office any time soon.”
Houston’s multifamily market is also a tale of two levels of quality. There has been plenty of demand for Class-A apartment communities built in 1990 or later and not as much for older, workforce housing, said Bob Heard, executive vice president of multifamily investment properties for Colliers.
Houston has a high percentage of older product that is distressed in some way, and while interest rate drops may allow for some refinancings, distress is still mounting, he said.
“The wave of distress in Houston is in the billions,” Heard said. “We haven’t scratched the surface on it yet.”
Eventually, a slew of distressed properties will be put up for sale at the same time, pushing prices further down, he said. Heard is advising lenders that have taken over properties to sell now, while they can likely still get their loan values back.
“Until we hit the bottom on the distress side of things, there’s going to be new lower comps to compare the sale to,” Heard said. “We’re going to set a new low bar each time these deals start to trade.”
Steve Massey, senior vice president at Cadence Bank, said the interest rate drop will likely lead to some optimism and potentially a great start to next year.
“But I think you’re going to need more than 25 bps to move the needle in terms of that activity,” Massey said. “If they move to 50 or 75, I would predict a better year than 2025.”
Massey has seen healthy business activity spurred by President Donald Trump’s election, he said.
That was a bit tempered by fear of tariffs around February, but business owners are realizing that prices and inflation have not been as impactful as they may have initially expected, Massey said.
Tariffs led to a renewed push to onshore manufacturing after decades of shipping it overseas. Houston has benefited from that in the form of major investment announcements from manufacturing giants, including Apple, Tesla and Nvidia.
Eli Lilly is reportedly looking to build a $5.9B pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Houston, which would be huge for the city’s life sciences ecosystem, Stream Realty Partners Senior Associate Zach Leger said.
“It’s really exciting, and hopefully it leads to more announcements and other people giving us a look,” he said.
Biotech and manufacturing investments likely aren’t impacted by the interest rate drop, but lowering the cost of borrowing will help spur business activity, Leger said.
Development can pick up more when Treasury and interest rates drop, allowing developers to lower their exit cap rates and better appeal to investors, Lerner said.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield ticked higher on Thursday despite Wednesday’s interest rate decline.
“It’s starting to loosen up a little bit more on the ground-up, but it’s not an influx yet,” Lerner said. “It’s going to take something bigger than that.”
Multifamily loans are typically sized to agency executions based on five-, seven- or 10-year Treasury notes, which are not impacted by rate cuts, Heard said.
“While this is a step in the right direction, it’s not enough of a step to change things materially,” Heard said.