Nearly three in ten payroll jobs in Memphis are in trade, transportation and utilities, a concentration far above any other market we have measured, and that sector is the one still growing. The metro also holds more jobs than it has resident workers. Memphis city has lost 18,863 residents since 2020 while DeSoto County, Mississippi, directly across the state line, gained 12,605. Housing is the cheapest we have recorded and still absorbs 27.4 percent of the city median income.

Memphis from the air at golden hour, the downtown towers on the Mississippi River bluff with the Hernando de Soto Bridge crossing into Arkansas.

Watch market

Memphis multifamily investment guide

#47 of 49 nationally Southeast

Logistics capital with the lowest basis in our coverage and the highest operational demands.

Memphis on the Mississippi. This is a logistics economy first, and the concentration is larger than in any other market we have measured. Generated plate, produced for Grey Oaks. Illustrative of the metro, not a photograph of a specific property.

Our read

Investor capital depth 2 / 5

Buy-side conditions 3 / 5

Qualitative judgments on a five-point scale, not licensed index values. Ranked #47 of 49 markets we cover.

294 Jobs in the metro BLS, July 2026

+18,200 Jobs above the resident labor force July 2026, preliminary

-3.0% Population change, Memphis city April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025

+6.8% Population change, DeSoto County, Mississippi April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025

The case for

Distribution and logistics employment is structurally anchored, and entry pricing per unit is among the lowest in the country.

The case against

Operationally demanding, with collections and turnover pressure that punishes absentee ownership.

Our stanceOnly with a best-in-class local operator. Basis alone is not a business plan here.

The figures that matter

Trade, transportation and utilities share of payrolls: 29.4% July 2026, preliminary, our arithmetic · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics The next highest single-sector share we have measured is New York at 23.1 percent.
Jobs above the resident labor force: +18,200 July 2026, preliminary · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 649,000 payroll jobs against a civilian labor force of 630,800.
Population change, Memphis city: -3.0% -18,863 residents April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 · U.S. Census Bureau
Population change, DeSoto County, Mississippi: +6.8% +12,605 residents April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 · U.S. Census Bureau Directly south of Shelby County across the state line.
Median home value, Memphis city: $169,000 ACS 2020-2024 · U.S. Census Bureau Below Wayne County, Michigan at $178,500, the lowest we had previously recorded.
Rent as a share of income, Memphis city: 27.4% ACS 2020-2024, our arithmetic · U.S. Census Bureau On a poverty rate of 23.1 percent.

Where we would and would not transact

How to read this map

Two lines matter here and neither is a zoning boundary. The first is the state line running along the southern edge of Shelby County: north of it the population is falling and south of it, in DeSoto County, Mississippi, it is growing at 6.8 percent. The second is the airport and the distribution corridor around it, because nearly three in ten payroll jobs in this metro are in trade, transportation and utilities and that is where they sit.

Select a submarket on the map to see our read on it.

Submarket 1 of 6

Watching

Downtown Memphis and the Medical District

Institutional employment in a city that has lost almost nineteen thousand residents.

What drives our read

Memphis city fell 3.0 percent since 2020; education and health grew only 0.7 percent.

What this stance means

We are underwriting but not committing. Something specific has to resolve first, and the read above says what it is. A watch can become a target without the submarket changing, if the price does.

Other submarkets here

Submarket 2 of 6

Watching

Midtown and Cooper-Young

The most established rental submarket in a 55.1 percent renter city.

What drives our read

55.1 percent of Memphis city households rent.

What this stance means

We are underwriting but not committing. Something specific has to resolve first, and the read above says what it is. A watch can become a target without the submarket changing, if the price does.

Other submarkets here

Submarket 3 of 6

Where we would transact

East Memphis and the Poplar corridor

Higher household incomes inside the county line, with almost no new supply.

What drives our read

Shelby County permitted about 0.30 percent of its housing stock in 2025.

What this stance means

We would underwrite here on this strategy today. That is a statement about basis, vintage of stock and the local demand base fitting what we buy. It is not a view that any particular asset here clears.

Other submarkets here

Submarket 4 of 6

Watching

The airport and distribution corridor

Where the metro’s dominant sector actually sits, and where its workforce housing demand originates.

What drives our read

Trade, transportation and utilities is about 29.4 percent of all payroll jobs.

What this stance means

We are underwriting but not committing. Something specific has to resolve first, and the read above says what it is. A watch can become a target without the submarket changing, if the price does.

Other submarkets here

Submarket 5 of 6

Not for this strategy

Southaven and DeSoto County

Growing fast and building fast, on a rental base of only 22.1 percent of households.

What drives our read

DeSoto County permitted about 1.13 percent of its stock while 77.9 percent of households own.

What this stance means

We would not buy here on this strategy. That is a judgment about fit, not a prediction that the submarket performs badly. Somebody with a different mandate may well be right to buy it.

Other submarkets here

Submarket 6 of 6

Where we would transact

Bartlett and Cordova

Suburban Shelby, retaining households the city is losing without leaving the county.

What drives our read

Shelby County median household income is $63,767 against $51,736 in the city.

What this stance means

Other submarkets here

Nearly three in ten jobs here are in one sector

Sources 1 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Every market guide in this series reports a sector mix. This is the only one where a single supersector approaches a third of all employment, and the gap to the next most concentrated market we have measured is large.

On preliminary Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for July 2026, trade, transportation and utilities employed 190,900 people in this metro against total nonfarm employment of 649,000. That is about 29.4 percent of all payroll jobs on our arithmetic. The most concentrated market we had measured before this guide was New York, where education and health services accounts for about 23.1 percent of payrolls. Memphis is close to six percentage points beyond that.¹

Concentration is usually a warning in these guides, and here it comes with a mitigation and a caveat that pull in opposite directions. The mitigation is that this is the sector that grew. Trade, transportation and utilities added 1.4 percent over the year while manufacturing fell 1.5 percent, leisure and hospitality 1.6 percent, information 2.0 percent, professional and business services 2.0 percent and financial activities 3.6 percent. Five of the ten published rows declined. Without the logistics base this would be a contracting labor market rather than a flat one; total nonfarm employment rose just 0.1 percent.¹

The caveat is that a rent roll underwritten here is underwritten against freight. Distribution and transportation employment responds to national goods volumes, to fuel costs and to the capital decisions of a small number of very large operators, none of which are visible in a local market study. A diversified metro absorbs a downturn in one sector across the others. A metro where one sector is 29.4 percent of payrolls does not have that cushion.¹

The other three growing rows are small. Mining, logging and construction added 2.3 percent on 26,700 jobs, other services 2.1 percent on 29,200 and government 0.4 percent on 81,500. Education and health services, which is the growth engine in most of the markets we cover and grew 5.1 percent in San Diego and 4.0 percent in Northern New Jersey, grew only 0.7 percent here.¹

Trade, transportation and utilities is about 29.4 percent of all payroll jobs.
The next most concentrated market we have measured is New York at about 23.1 percent.
That sector grew 1.4 percent while five of ten rows declined.
Education and health services grew only 0.7 percent here.

A metro where one sector is 29.4 percent of payrolls has no cushion. The mitigation is that it is the sector still growing; the risk is that it is the only one.

The metro holds more jobs than it has resident workers

Sources 1 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2 U.S. Census Bureau

One relationship in the headline figures is worth drawing out, because it changes who the tenant actually is.

Total nonfarm employment in July 2026 was 649,000. The civilian labor force was 630,800. Payroll jobs exceeded the resident labor force by about 18,200.¹

Those two series count different things. Payroll employment is counted where the job is located. The labor force is counted where the worker lives. When the first exceeds the second, more people commute into the area to work than commute out of it, and the gap is a floor on net in-commuting rather than a precise measure of it, because some residents hold more than one job and some hold none.

For a multifamily owner that has a specific consequence. A share of the workforce filling this metro's dominant sector sleeps somewhere else, and given the geography, a meaningful part of that somewhere else is across the Mississippi state line. The payroll base and the rent roll base are not the same population, and growth in the first does not automatically become demand for the second.¹²

That is the connection between this section and the next one. The jobs are staying in Shelby County. A growing share of the people doing them are not.

Payroll jobs exceed the resident labor force by about 18,200. The people filling this metro’s jobs and the people filling its apartments are not the same population.

The state line fifteen miles south is doing the work

Sources 2 U.S. Census Bureau

This series has documented core-to-suburb migration in several metros. Memphis is the clearest case of it crossing a state boundary, and the numbers on the two sides are close enough to be read together.

Memphis city fell 3.0 percent between April 2020 and July 2025, a loss of 18,863 residents. Shelby County as a whole fell 2.1 percent, losing 19,786. Almost the entire county decline is the city; the rest of Shelby is roughly flat.²

Immediately south, DeSoto County, Mississippi grew 6.8 percent, adding 12,605 residents. That single county absorbed a number equal to about two thirds of the city's loss, on a base less than a third of its size.²

The household economics on the two sides explain the direction. Median household income is $85,297 in DeSoto against $51,736 in Memphis city. Poverty is 9.6 percent against 23.1 percent. DeSoto is 77.9 percent owner-occupied against 44.9 percent in the city. This is not a marginal difference in outcomes across a boundary; it is a different population profile a short drive apart.²

Supply follows the same direction. DeSoto permitted 890 residential units in 2025 against a stock of 79,073, about 1.13 percent. Shelby permitted 1,230 against 409,202 units, about 0.30 percent. DeSoto is building at nearly four times the intensity of the county it borders, on a fraction of the base.²

For an owner, the direction of travel matters more than either number alone. Very low permitting in Shelby County would ordinarily be protective for an existing owner. It is protective only if the households stay. Here the supply restraint sits on the side of the line people are leaving, and the building is happening on the side they are moving to.²

Memphis city lost 18,863 residents; Shelby County lost 19,786.
DeSoto County, Mississippi gained 12,605.
DeSoto median household income is $85,297 against $51,736 in the city.
DeSoto permits at about 1.13 percent of stock against Shelby at 0.30 percent.

Low supply protects an owner only if the households stay. In Memphis the restraint is on the side of the line people are leaving.

The cheapest housing we have recorded, and it is still not affordable

Sources 2 U.S. Census Bureau

Memphis is where the difference between cheap and affordable is easiest to see, and it is the reason we would not underwrite this market on price alone.

Median home value in Memphis city is $169,000. That is the lowest figure in our coverage, below the $178,500 we recorded in Wayne County in our Detroit guide, which held the previous low. Against a city median household income of $51,736, that is about 3.3 times income, a ratio that would be described as highly affordable anywhere else in this series.²

The rent tells a different story. Median gross rent in the city is $1,181 on Census QuickFacts, which absorbs about 27.4 percent of median household income on our arithmetic. That is approaching the thirty percent line, and it sits alongside a poverty rate of 23.1 percent. Countywide the picture is easier, at $1,232 of rent on $63,767 of income, about 23.2 percent.²

We drew the same distinction in the Bronx, where the deepest renter base in our coverage came with a median household already spending 35.9 percent of income on rent. Memphis is a milder version of the same problem. Cheap housing on a low income is not the same as affordable housing, and the capacity to absorb rent increases is a function of the second number rather than the first.²

The gap between owning and renting is also narrow, which caps rent growth by a different route. Monthly owner cost with a mortgage in the city is $1,420 against that $1,181 rent, a difference of only $239. As we set out in our Phoenix guide, where the gap was $223, a small difference means a meaningful rent increase pushes the tenant toward a purchase they can nearly already afford. Here the constraint on rents is both the income and the exit.²

On the tax side, one statewide provision matters more to a multifamily buyer here than anything local, and we set it out in full in our Chattanooga guide rather than repeating it. In short, the Tennessee Constitution defines residential property containing two or more rental units as industrial and commercial property, which is assessed at forty percent of appraised value instead of twenty-five. It applies in Shelby County exactly as it does in Hamilton County, and it does not apply across the line in Mississippi.

Memphis city median home value is $169,000, the lowest in our coverage.
Rent absorbs about 27.4 percent of city median household income.
The poverty rate is 23.1 percent.
Owning with a mortgage costs only $239 a month more than renting.

Cheap housing on a low income is not affordable housing. The capacity to absorb a rent increase depends on the income, not on the price of the house.

Where we would and would not deploy

Sources 2 U.S. Census Bureau 1 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Our position on Memphis is selective and it is a position about which side of two lines an asset sits on.

We would underwrite suburban Shelby County, and the East Memphis and Poplar corridor along with Bartlett and Cordova in particular. These retain households that the city is losing without those households leaving the county, county median household income of $63,767 is well above the city's, and Shelby permits at only about 0.30 percent of stock so competing supply is minimal. The Tennessee assessment classification applies, and it should be in the model at forty percent rather than twenty-five.²

We would be cautious in the city itself. A 55.1 percent renter share is genuinely deep and the basis is the lowest we have recorded, but the city lost 18,863 residents, rent already takes 27.4 percent of a median income of $51,736, the poverty rate is 23.1 percent and the gap to ownership is only $239. Each of those individually is manageable. Together they describe a market where the rent cannot easily go up and the tenant base is shrinking.²

We would not buy in DeSoto County despite it being the growth story. It is 77.9 percent owner-occupied, so the rental base is thin, and it is permitting at about 1.13 percent of its stock, so what rental demand exists is being met by new product. A county can be an excellent place to live and a poor place to own apartments, and on these numbers DeSoto is both.²

The metro-level risk we would size explicitly is the concentration. Trade, transportation and utilities is 29.4 percent of payrolls here. We would want to know, for any specific asset, what share of the rent roll works in distribution, and we would stress that share against a freight downturn rather than against a general recession assumption, because in this metro those are not the same scenario.¹

Investors comparing a concentrated logistics economy with a diversified one should read this alongside our Nashville guide in the same state, and those weighing a shrinking core against a growing ring should read our Portland guide.

Stress the rent roll against a freight downturn, not a general recession. In a metro where one sector is 29.4 percent of payrolls those are different scenarios.

Employment by sector

Memphis, TN-MS-AR Metropolitan Statistical Area. Figures are as published for July 2026, preliminary.

Sector	Jobs	12-month change
Total nonfarm	649,000	+0.1%
Civilian labor force	630,800	Pending
Trade, transportation and utilities	190,900	+1.4%
Mining, logging and construction	26,700	+2.3%
Other services	29,200	+2.1%
Education and health services	102,300	+0.7%
Government	81,500	+0.4%
Manufacturing	39,000	-1.5%
Leisure and hospitality	62,600	-1.6%
Information	4,800	-2.0%
Professional and business services	82,900	-2.0%
Financial activities	29,100	-3.6%

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economy at a Glance, Memphis, TN-MS-AR. Retrieved September 3, 2026.

The demand base

Population, tenure, incomes and housing costs for the county. These are the figures that decide whether a renter household exists, and whether it could buy instead.

Measure	Value	As of
Population, Shelby County A loss of 19,786 residents.	910,226 -2.1% since April 2020	July 1, 2025 estimate
Population, Memphis city A loss of 18,863 residents, nearly the whole county decline.	609,647 -3.0% since April 2020	July 1, 2025 estimate
Population, DeSoto County, Mississippi A gain of 12,605 residents across the state line.	197,918 +6.8% since April 2020	July 1, 2025 estimate
Households, Shelby County	362,741	ACS 2020-2024
Housing units, Shelby County	409,202	July 1, 2025
Housing units, DeSoto County	79,073	July 1, 2025
Owner-occupied rate, Memphis city The remaining 55.1 percent rent, against 22.1 percent in DeSoto County.	44.9%	ACS 2020-2024
Median gross rent, Memphis city About 27.4 percent of median household income on our arithmetic.	$1,181	ACS 2020-2024
Median gross rent, Shelby County About 23.2 percent of median household income.	$1,232	ACS 2020-2024
Monthly owner cost with a mortgage, Memphis city Only $239 above the median rent.	$1,420	ACS 2020-2024
Median household income, Memphis city Against $85,297 in DeSoto County.	$51,736	ACS 2020-2024, in 2024 dollars
Median home value, Memphis city About 3.3 times median household income.	$169,000	ACS 2020-2024
Building permits 2025, Shelby County About 0.30 percent of stock.	1,230	2025, all residential
Building permits 2025, DeSoto County About 1.13 percent of stock, nearly four times the Shelby rate.	890	2025, all residential
Poverty rate, Memphis city DeSoto County is 9.6 percent.	23.1%	ACS 2020-2024

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts, Shelby County, Tennessee, DeSoto County, Mississippi and Memphis city, Tennessee. Retrieved September 3, 2026.

Underwriting sandbox

Run the arithmetic yourself

No market data is pre-filled here, because we will not put estimated figures in your model. Enter the numbers from a real deal and this shows you what they imply.

What to stress in Memphis

Set economic occupancy ten points below physical and see whether the deal still pays.

Units Purchase price · $ In-place average rent · $/mo Other income · $/yr Vacancy and credit loss · % Operating expenses · $/yr Loan amount · $ Interest rate · % Exit cap rate · %

Net operating income

Going-in cap rate

Debt service coverage

Cash-on-cash, year one

Breakeven occupancy

Exit value at your cap

Cap spread, entry to exit

Standard formulas, nothing proprietary. Net operating income is gross potential rent plus other income, less vacancy and credit loss, less operating expenses. Debt service assumes a thirty-year amortizing schedule at the rate entered. These outputs are arithmetic on your inputs, not a projection, and they are not advice.

Diligence

What to ask before you wire

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1 of 26

Sponsor

Ask to speak with a limited partner from a deal that did not go to plan
Confirm the general partner's cash co-investment in this specific deal
Review the full fee schedule, including construction management and refinance fees
Confirm whether the preferred return is cumulative and whether it compounds
Read the capital call clause and what declining one does to your position

The asset

Current rent roll and trailing twelve month operating statement, not a summary
Economic occupancy, not physical occupancy, for the last eight quarters
Bad debt and concession history by month
Third-party property condition assessment with remaining useful life on roof and mechanicals
Unit-level renovation scope and actual achieved premiums on completed units

The market

Units under construction within a two-mile radius, with delivery dates
Submarket rent trend in dollars, not percentages, over eight quarters
Employment concentration: what share of demand depends on one employer
Comparable trades in the submarket over the last eighteen months

Expenses

Bound insurance quote at this asset, with current roof age and any mitigation report
Post-sale property tax modeled from the purchase price under this state's rules
Utility structure and whether any recovery program is in place
Payroll and management fee structure, including any affiliate arrangements

The capital stack

Debt maturity date and what happens at it
Whether the rate is fixed, floating, or capped, and who pays for the cap
Debt service coverage covenant and current headroom against it
Refinance assumptions in the model and what happens if none is available

Memphis specifics

Economic occupancy by month for three years, not physical
Bad debt and eviction filing history at the asset
Operating partner's unit count within this specific metro
If in Desoto County. Mississippi regime, not Tennessee

Follow-up

What investors ask us about Memphis

Search questions

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Ricardo Sanabria · Grey Oaks Multifamily

Answering

Ask me anything about Memphis. These are the questions that actually come up.

Is the basis as good as it looks?

The basis is real. The question is whether the operator can convert it. We have seen the same asset produce a fifteen percent spread in economic occupancy under two different management companies.