Lender-Grade SBA and USDA Feasibility Studies, Calibrated to Texas

2. Texas Capital Markets at a Glance

Texas operates six SBA District Offices, the most of any U.S. state. The Houston District Office (8701 South Gessner Drive, Suite 1200) serves 32 counties in southeastern Texas. The San Antonio District Office (615 East Houston Street, Suite 298) serves 55 counties in south-central Texas. The Dallas/Fort Worth District Office (4300 Amon Carter Boulevard, Suite 114, Fort Worth) serves North Texas. The El Paso District Office (211 North Florence Street, 2nd Floor) serves the Trans-Pecos and Rio Grande counties. The Lower Rio Grande Valley District Office (Harlingen) serves Brownsville, McAllen, and the South Texas border. The West Texas District Office (Lubbock) serves the Panhandle, South Plains, and Permian Basin counties. Texas was the number-two state nationally in fiscal year 2025 SBA 7(a) volume at approximately $3.61 billion across 5,488 loans, behind only California's $4.39 billion.

The dominant Texas Certified Development Company for SBA 504 work is Capital CDC (Austin), which received the 2024 Pinnacle Award from the SBA Dallas/Fort Worth District Office for being the Top 504 Lender in North Texas with 31 SBA 504 Loan Approvals totaling $54.98 million in fiscal year 2024. Capital CDC ranks 10th nationally in 504 loan volume among 183 U.S. CDCs and has been Top 504 Lender in SBA Region 6 (Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana) for 20 consecutive years. Other active Texas CDCs include LiftFund (San Antonio), BCL of Texas, Houston-Galveston Area Local Development Corporation, DFW Capital Corporation, and Greater East Texas Community Capital. Nationally, more than 6,700 SBA 504 loans were made in fiscal year 2025 totaling $7.8 billion.

Texas-headquartered or Texas-active 7(a) lenders include Frost Bank (San Antonio), Comerica (Dallas, dual headquarters), Cadence Bank, Texas Capital Bank (Dallas), Prosperity Bancshares, PlainsCapital, Veritex Community Bank, Independent Bank Group (now SouthState), International Bank of Commerce / IBC Bank (Laredo), First Financial Bankshares, Inwood National, and Wallis Bank. National-firm Texas leaders include Bank of America, Huntington Bank (the number-three 7(a) lender nationally in fiscal year 2025 and the Texas market share leader by Huntington's own announcement), JPMorgan Chase, Live Oak Bank, Wells Fargo, BayFirst National Bank, Celtic Bank, and Commonwealth Business Bank.

USDA Rural Development maintains its Texas State Office at 101 South Main Street, Suite 102, Temple, Texas 76501, with State Director James Redfield. The Temple office runs Multifamily Housing, Single Family Housing, Business and Cooperative Programs, and Community Programs through 13 Area Offices serving the 254-county geography. Approximately 95.5 percent of Texas's land area is USDA-eligible. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts administers JETI/Chapter 403, residual Chapter 313 agreements, and the Property Tax Assistance Division. The Texas Economic Development Corporation operates as a 501(c)(6) under the Governor's Office of Economic Development and Tourism. The Texas Enterprise Fund has cumulatively committed $878.4 million across 213 projects since fiscal year 2004, supporting 127,615 new direct jobs and $64.46 billion in capital investment. The Texas Workforce Commission Skills Development Fund (approximately $2,000 to $2,400 per trainee, up to $500,000 per grant), the Capital Access Program, and the Texas Small Business Credit Initiative round out the state stack.

The single most analytically distinctive Texas capital-markets variable that out-of-state lenders consistently misprice is the ERCOT/SB 6 large-load interconnection lead time and posted-collateral structure. No other U.S. state requires a $100,000 transmission study deposit, mandatory remote-curtailment installation, ERCOT plus PUCT 120-plus-60-day approval, and a four-year baseline grid-connection wait for any new ≥75 megawatt load. Out-of-state SBA 7(a) and 504 lenders quoting Texas industrial, hospitality, or data-center-adjacent CRE without a Texas-specific power underwrite will routinely understate construction lead time by 18 to 36 months. The second most distinctive variable is the JETI/Chapter 403 50 percent appraised-value limitation as a replacement for Chapter 313: every JETI-eligible 7(a) or 504 industrial deal must now be modeled with the new framework, not the legacy Chapter 313 framework. MMCG models both at intake on every Texas commercial real estate, manufacturing, and industrial engagement.

3. Houston Metro Deep Dive: Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land

The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land MSA closed 2025 at approximately 7.9 million residents per CoStar, the third-largest U.S. metro after New York and Los Angeles. Harris County alone reached 5,009,302, the third-largest U.S. county. Houston is the global energy capital, the largest U.S. petrochemical complex, the largest U.S. medical complex, and one of the most diverse industrial economies in the country.

​

Houston industrial closed Q4 2025 at 6.3 percent vacancy with average asking rent of $7.76 per square foot triple-net per Terrydale Capital. The Interstate 69 / Interstate 10 / Interstate 45 corridor and the Port Houston-proximate submarkets carry the logistics premium; the petrochemical corridor along the Houston Ship Channel anchors heavy industrial demand from ExxonMobil (Spring/Houston/Beaumont), Chevron (relocated headquarters to Houston 2024), Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Occidental, EOG Resources, Halliburton, Schlumberger, and Baker Hughes.

​

Multifamily Q4 2025 vacancy reached a record-high 12.4 percent per CoStar/Matthews with annual rent growth of negative 0.9 percent year-over-year. Roughly 14,100 units were delivered in 2025 (down 45 percent from the 2024 peak), with approximately 13,000 units remaining under construction, the smallest active pipeline since 2017. Sales activity accelerated in late 2025; cap rates averaged 6.0 percent in Q4. Submarket variation was significant: Baytown / San Jacinto River East and Cloverleaf / Channelview improved vacancy by 250 and 210 basis points respectively; Class A average rent stands modestly above the metro $1,400 mark.

​

Houston office vacancy reached 24.8 percent in Q4 2025 per Cushman and Wakefield, with availability totaling approximately 26.7 percent in Q1 2026 (38.2 million square feet Class A, 25.5 million square feet Class B, 1.8 million square feet Class C). Average gross rents rose to $30.57 per square foot in Q1 2026. The conversion pipeline expanded from 5.0 to 6.7 million square feet, third-largest in the nation per CBRE. Pre-2011 vintage carries 28.0 percent vacancy versus 15.1 percent for newer stock, a stark flight-to-quality dynamic.

​

Retail Q4 2025 vacancy 5.6 percent, stable quarter-over-quarter and up 20 basis points year-over-year per Cushman and Wakefield.

Houston anchors the world's largest medical complex. The Texas Medical Center (TMC) spans 1,345 acres with 50-plus million square feet developed across 106 buildings, 60-plus member institutions including 21 hospitals and 9,200-plus licensed beds, 106,000 employees, 50,000 life science students, 10 million patient encounters annually, and a $25 billion annual GDP contribution. Approximately 3 million square feet is currently under construction. Member institutions include MD Anderson Cancer Center (the largest cancer hospital in the world), Houston Methodist, Texas Children's Hospital, Memorial Hermann, Baylor College of Medicine, UTHealth Houston, and McGovern Medical School. The Texas 65-plus population supports a structurally over-indexed assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing pipeline served by USDA Community Facilities financing in rural-eligible counties.

​

Port Houston handled a record 4,139,991 TEUs in 2024 (up 8 percent year-over-year) and 53,066,219 short tons of cargo at public terminals (up 6 percent), with a 60 percent market share for U.S. resin exports. The Houston Ship Channel (200-plus private plus 8 public terminals) is the largest U.S. port by waterborne tonnage, supporting 1.54 million Texas jobs and contributing $439 billion (approximately 20 percent of Texas GDP). The Project 11 widening to 530 feet completed late 2024 allows 15,000 to 17,000 TEU neo-Panamax vessels at Bayport.

4. Dallas-Fort Worth Metro Deep Dive

The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA closed 2025 at approximately 8.3 million residents per CoStar, the largest Texas metro and the fourth-largest combined statistical area in the United States. Dallas County (2,656,028), Tarrant County (2,230,708), and Collin County all exceed 1.1 million; Collin added 46,694 residents in one year (the fourth-fastest-growing large county in the United States), and Kaufman County grew 6.0 percent in a single year (second-fastest nationally).

​

DFW industrial is the third-largest U.S. industrial market by big-box inventory at approximately 516.2 million square feet and the second-largest by overall inventory after Inland Empire. Q4 2025 vacancy stabilized at 8.7 to 9.2 percent per CBRE/Partners, down 70 to 137 basis points from peak. Per Avison Young's Dallas Industrial Market Report Q4 2025, the Dallas-Fort Worth industrial market wrapped up 2025 with 27.2 million square feet of positive net absorption, underscoring sustained demand that pushed leasing to 56.1 million square feet, over 50 percent above long-term norms. Construction pipeline ranges from 22.6 million square feet (CBRE) to 32.0 million square feet (Savills) depending on methodology; deliveries totaled 17.6 million square feet for 2025. Average rent is $10.01 per square foot per Partners, up 3.2 percent quarter-over-quarter. AllianceTexas (Hillwood) reports $130 billion regional economic impact over 35 years, $10.2 billion in 2024 alone, and an $80 million federal INFRA grant. South Dallas / Interstate 20 / Interstate 45 corridor runs $7 to $9 per square foot triple-net; the DFW Airport submarket commands $12.87 per square foot. Approximately 30 percent of significant DFW industrial deals now require heavy power capacity.

​

DFW multifamily rents averaged around $1,500 per unit with vacancy 11.8 percent trending lower as absorption beats deliveries in late 2025. Q4 2025 conditions support cap rates around 5.7 percent.

​

DFW office Class A vacancy was 24.5 percent in Q1 2025 per Cushman and Wakefield, down 100 basis points year-over-year for the fourth consecutive quarterly decline. Q1 2025 leasing of 18.5 million square feet was the strongest first quarter on record and the fourth-highest quarterly total in Dallas history. Uptown Class A rents reach $41 to $44 per square foot triple-net. Submarket coverage extends across Uptown, Legacy West (Plano/Frisco), Las Colinas, downtown Dallas, and downtown Fort Worth.

​

DFW is the second-largest U.S. colocation data center market and the number-one market for speculative planned colocation power per datacenterHawk. Approximately 1.0 gigawatt operational capacity (98 percent leased, 2.4 percent vacancy per CBRE H1 2025); 700 to 1,083 megawatts under construction (78 to 95 percent preleased); 3,000 to 3,870 megawatts planned. Net absorption was 470.8 to 575 megawatts in 2025 (number-two nationally behind Northern Virginia's 1,102 megawatts). Asking rates run $195.94 per kilowatt per month for 250 to 500 kilowatt requirements (national average), up 6.5 percent year-over-year. DFW electricity at 6.8 cents per kilowatt-hour ranks among the five cheapest national markets per JLL. Major projects include Google Midlothian (2 million-plus square feet), Microsoft Irving (4 facilities), CyrusOne DFW7 Fort Worth (70 megawatts initial), and the Provident Data Centers / PowerHouse 768-acre 200 megawatt campus. SB 6 take-or-pay impact is significant: $100,000 study deposit, mandatory curtailment for new ≥75 megawatt loads after December 31, 2025, and co-location restrictions effective September 1, 2025 fundamentally reshape DFW data center development economics.

​

DFW International Airport handled approximately 85.7 million passengers in 2025 per Airports Council International rankings (fourth-busiest globally) and 88 million in 2024 (third-busiest), with 743,203 operations in 2024 and American Airlines holding 82.6 percent market share. DFW is the second-largest single-airline hub in the world after Atlanta. The Dallas Forward $9 billion / $4 billion expanded Terminal F plan was announced May 2025. DFW generates more than $37 billion in annual economic impact and supports 634,000 direct and indirect jobs.

5. Other Asset Classes MMCG Covers Across Texas

Beyond the four Texas Triangle metros, the full Texas asset class spectrum runs through the U.S.-Mexico border at Laredo, El Paso, McAllen, and Brownsville; the Permian Basin at Midland-Odessa, Pecos, Wink, and Mentone; the Texas Panhandle at Lubbock and Amarillo; East Texas at Tyler, Longview, Marshall, Texarkana, Lufkin, and Nacogdoches; the Beaumont-Port Arthur petrochemical complex; the Coastal Bend at Corpus Christi; the Hill Country wineries and wedding venue corridor; and the rural agricultural counties spanning the entire 254-county geography.

​

The Permian Basin is the most prolific U.S. oil-producing region. ExxonMobil's $59.5 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources closed May 2024; Diamondback Energy's $26 billion acquisition of Endeavor Energy Resources closed 2024. WTI breakeven runs $62 per barrel (Midland) and $64 per barrel (Delaware) per Dallas Federal Reserve Energy Survey data. Lubbock anchors Texas Tech University and ag processing; Amarillo anchors cattle and beef processing for Tyson, JBS, and Cargill. Per the USDA Texas Annual Cattle Review 2025, Texas's January 1, 2025 inventory of all cattle and calves at 12.2 million head was up 200,000 from January 1, 2024, exactly double Nebraska's 6.05 million head and ahead of Kansas at 5.95 million. Texas slaughter cattle averaged 1,437 pounds, the highest among major states.

​

East Texas Piney Woods region anchors timber industry and USDA-eligible rural geography. Beaumont-Port Arthur is the largest U.S. petrochemical complex outside Houston, with the ExxonMobil Beaumont refinery, Motiva, Total, and Valero anchoring the corridor; Golden Pass LNG (Sabine Pass) and Port Arthur LNG (Sempra) are under construction. Galveston anchors hospitality and the third-largest U.S. cruise port at the Port of Galveston, with Hurricane Ike legacy damage exposure and TWIA's highest-exposure county. Corpus Christi / Coastal Bend anchors the Port of Corpus Christi (the largest U.S. crude export port at 130.5 million tons crude in 2024 and 127.4 million in 2025), Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, and the Eagle Ford Shale supply chain; the Corpus Christi channel was deepened to 54 feet MLLW in 2025. The Brownsville / Boca Chica corridor anchors SpaceX Starbase (incorporated as a separate Texas city since May 2024) and the Port of Brownsville.

​

The U.S.-Mexico border anchors USMCA reshoring. Port Laredo (Webb County) handles the world's number-one cross-border trade flow at $339.7 billion in 2024. Per the Texas Comptroller, trade through Port Laredo supported 1.1 million net Texas jobs and contributed $135.2 billion to Texas GDP in 2024. World Trade Bridge expansion is underway 2024 onward. El Paso (El Paso County) forms a bi-national metro of approximately 2.5 million combined with Ciudad Juárez, anchored by Fort Bliss (the largest U.S. Army installation by area) and the maquiladora corridor for automotive and electronics. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission (Hidalgo County) anchors the Rio Grande Valley citrus and agriculture economy with growing distribution and warehousing demand and the Anzalduas International Bridge. Brownsville (Cameron County) anchors the Port of Brownsville and SpaceX Starbase at Boca Chica.

​

Self-Storage and RV Storage. Concentrated demand across the Texas Triangle, the Hill Country, the Coastal Bend, the Panhandle, the I-35 / I-10 / I-20 / I-45 / I-37 corridors, and the border industrial submarkets. Hurricane Beryl-affected (July 2024) and severe-hailstorm-affected interior markets must explicitly model wind and hail deductible escalation under the new percentage-based 1 to 5 percent of Coverage A standards.

​

RV Parks, Glamping, and Cabins. Concentrated demand in the Hill Country, the Big Bend region, the Texas Coastal Bend (Padre Island, Mustang Island, Rockport-Fulton), the Sabine River corridor, the Panhandle (Palo Duro Canyon), and the East Texas piney woods. Texas glamping demand is structurally driven by the absence of state income tax and the four-MSA migration corridor.

​

Healthcare, Assisted Living, and Medical Office. Major Texas systems include the Texas Medical Center (Houston), South Texas Medical Center (San Antonio), Baylor Scott and White (Temple, the largest non-profit healthcare system in Texas), Methodist Health System (Dallas), Texas Health Resources (Arlington), HCA Houston Healthcare, Memorial Hermann, AdventHealth Central Texas, Cook Children's (Fort Worth), Children's Health (Dallas), MD Anderson, Houston Methodist, UT Southwestern, and the multiple VA medical centers across the state. USDA Community Facilities financing remains available for non-profit operators across rural-eligible counties.

​

Retail, Office, and Mixed-Use. H-E-B (San Antonio-headquartered, dominant grocer in Texas), Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Sprouts, Aldi, Lidl, Tom Thumb, Kroger, Central Market, and Costco anchor the Texas grocery-anchored retail set. The Galleria (Houston), NorthPark Center (Dallas), the Domain (Austin), La Cantera (San Antonio), and the Pearl District (San Antonio) anchor the regional luxury and experiential retail markets.

​

• Gas Stations, C-Stores, Truck Stops, and QSR. Texas sits at the intersection of Interstate 35 (Mexico-Minnesota), Interstate 45 (Houston-Dallas), Interstate 10 (California-Florida), Interstate 20 (Texas-South Carolina), Interstate 30 (DFW-Little Rock), Interstate 27 (Lubbock-Amarillo), Interstate 37 (San Antonio-Corpus Christi), and the Texas-Mexico border bridges. Buc-ee's (the dominant Texas convenience store chain, founded 1982 in Lake Jackson with the world's largest convenience stores), Wawa (entering Texas 2024), 7-Eleven (headquartered in Irving Texas since 2014), Stripes, RaceTrac, QuikTrip, Loves Travel Stops, Pilot, and TA anchor the corridor. Texas fueling station, car wash, and quick-service restaurant feasibility must incorporate AADT, county-level commuter flows, the four-MSA Texas Triangle commuter sheds, the I-35 NAFTA / USMCA corridor truck flow, and the structural supply-demand effect of 31.29 million residents and the highest U.S. domestic in-migration figure for the second consecutive year.

• Wedding Venues, Marinas, and Childcare. Texas Hill Country wedding venues across Fredericksburg, Boerne, Wimberley, Dripping Springs, Driftwood, and the Lake LBJ corridor anchor a distinct premium hospitality segment. Lake Travis, Lake Buchanan, Canyon Lake, Lake Whitney, Sam Rayburn Reservoir, Toledo Bend, Lake Texoma, and the Texas Coastal Bend anchor the Texas marina pipeline. Childcare desert classifications across most rural Texas counties support USDA Community Facilities financing for non-profit and faith-based childcare feasibility.

• Aerospace, Defense, and Manufacturing-Adjacent Service Businesses. Texas hosts SpaceX Starbase (Boca Chica / Brownsville), the Lockheed Martin Fort Worth F-35 production line, Bell Textron (Hurst, Fort Worth), L3Harris, Raytheon Technologies (McKinney), Northrop Grumman, the Boeing San Antonio MRO operation, and the Joint Base San Antonio defense cluster. Toyota Motor Manufacturing San Antonio (Tundra and Tacoma production), GM Arlington (Tahoe, Suburban, Yukon, Escalade), and Tesla Giga Texas anchor the Texas automotive cluster. The IRA-era manufacturing investment cluster includes Samsung Austin Semiconductor (the $40-plus billion Taylor expansion), Texas Instruments (Sherman, Lehi UT, Richardson), GlobalFoundries, and the new JETI/Chapter 403 manufacturing pipeline. The Texas craft brewing and distilling cluster (centered in Austin, Houston, San Antonio, and Fort Worth) supports a meaningful winery and brewery feasibility pipeline.

6. Seven Underwriting Realities That Make a Texas Study Defensible

Seven state-specific underwriting realities differentiate a defensible Texas feasibility study from a templated, out-of-state report. Each is non-optional in 2026.

• First, the ERCOT grid-island regime and the post-Senate-Bill-6 large-load tariff. ERCOT serves 90 percent of Texas electric load on its own interconnection. Senate Bill 6 (June 20, 2025) imposed a $100,000 transmission study deposit, mandatory remote-curtailment installation for any load interconnected after December 31, 2025, a 120-day ERCOT study plus 60-day PUCT decision window for any new ≥75 megawatt load, and explicit grid-emergency curtailment rights. ERCOT's 2025 Long-Term Load Forecast projects 145 gigawatts adjusted peak demand by 2031 (+69.6 percent from the August 10, 2023 record of 85,435 megawatts); high-case 218 gigawatts. PUCT Project No. 58317 is the active rulemaking. JLL's North America Data Center Report (August 2025) reports four-year average grid-connection wait times. Every Texas industrial, manufacturing, and data center feasibility study must build in a Texas-specific power line item with explicit treatment of (a) interconnection lead time, (b) collateral and take-or-pay obligations, (c) curtailment risk, and (d) co-location restrictions for any tenant exceeding the threshold. This is the highest-leverage 2026-vintage Texas underwriting variable.

• Second, the property tax burden combined with the JETI / Chapter 403 manufacturing abatement replacement of Chapter 313. Effective rate runs 1.31 percent statewide (1.245 percent per Census, 1.58 percent in major counties) against a U.S. average near 0.89 percent. Total Texas property market value hit $6.42 trillion in 2024. Chapter 313 sunset December 31, 2022 with 817 grandfathered active agreements; the JETI/Chapter 403 replacement (effective January 1, 2024) provides a 10-year M&O appraised-value limitation of 50 percent (75 percent in opportunity zones) for qualifying manufacturing, dispatchable generation, natural-resource development, R&D, and critical infrastructure projects. Renewables and energy storage are explicitly excluded, a major site-selection shift since renewables had been the majority of Chapter 313 projects. Nine JETI agreements have been executed as of Q1 2026 totaling approximately $10.08 billion in proposed investment. Senate Bill 4 (effective November 2025) increased the school-tax homestead exemption to $140,000; the new commercial circuit breaker caps appraisal increases at 20 percent on properties under $5 million.

• Third, hurricane and severe convective storm risk on the Gulf Coast and across Tornado Alley. TWIA insured 284,846 properties with $126.5 billion total insured value as of December 31, 2025 (record), wrote $820.9 million premium in 2025, and saw rate inadequacy of 38 percent residential and 45 percent commercial in 2024. The 14 first-tier coastal counties plus east Harris County are TWIA's eligible territory; Galveston, Brazoria, and Nueces are the highest-exposure counties. TWIA carried a $413.5 million deficit entering 2025 after Hurricane Beryl drained the Catastrophe Reserve Trust Fund. Hurricane Beryl (July 8, 2024, Category 1 landfall near Matagorda) caused $2.5 to $3.5 billion in Texas insured wind losses (CoreLogic), $2.5 to $4.5 billion U.S. private market insured losses (Moody's RMS), 32,166 TWIA claims with $545 million in estimated ultimate losses, and 2.7 million power outages (eclipsing Hurricane Ike's 2008 record). Texas had 1,123 hail events in 2023 (number-one nationally) and 878 ≥1-inch hail events in 2024 (also number-one). Texas homeowners insurance premiums rose 55-plus percent between 2019 and 2024; rate increases averaged 21 percent in 2023 and 19 percent in 2024. Senate Bill 458 mandatory appraisal provision applies to all personal and residential property policies issued or renewed after January 1, 2026. Wind/hail deductibles in Texas are now percentage-based at 1 to 5 percent of dwelling value, with 2 percent the dominant standard outside coastal high-risk zones.

• Fourth, Texas tort reform under HB 4 (2003) and HB 19 (2021). HB 4 capped non-economic medical malpractice damages at $250,000 per defendant and authorized statutory caps generally. HB 19 created mandatory bifurcation in commercial motor vehicle suits (Section 72.052 Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code), Phase 1 determines liability and compensatory damages, Phase 2 punitive damages. Approximately 80,000 trucking companies operate in Texas; only 4 percent of tractor-trailer tort cases reach verdict per ATRI's 2025 forensic analysis. The $100 million Werner Enterprises verdict (2018, affirmed by the 14th Court of Appeals in 2024) was overturned by the Texas Supreme Court in 2024-2025, the most significant tort outcome since HB 19. The Lone Star Economic Alliance (Texans for Lawsuit Reform-affiliated) is pushing 2025-2026 amendments to restore the admission rule and tighten coverage further.

• Fifth, the Texas Triangle four-MSA absorption pattern. Documented in Section 1, Pillar 3. A single-anchor metro framework does not translate to Texas; every Texas-wide feasibility study requires four separate metro models (Houston, DFW, Austin, San Antonio) with different supply-demand cycles, four absorption assumptions, and four competitive sets.

• Sixth, the Permian Basin and Gulf Coast LNG export buildout. The Permian Basin produces 48 percent of U.S. crude. Texas LNG exports run 15 billion cubic feet per day, the world's largest. Industrial CRE feasibility tied to LNG ramp must include FID-status and pipeline-takeaway risk in adjacent submarkets (Sabine Pass, Corpus Christi, Freeport, Golden Pass, Rio Grande, Port Arthur).

• Seventh, the U.S.-Mexico border, USMCA, and maquiladora reshoring. Port Laredo at $339.7 billion in 2024 is the number-one U.S. port of entry by value. USMCA reshoring continues to drive sustained industrial absorption at Laredo, McAllen, El Paso, and Brownsville. Tariff policy uncertainty under USMCA 2026 review creates short-term volume volatility but long-term demand for robust border infrastructure.