After several years of compressed deal flow and a persistent gap between buyer and seller expectations, Oklahoma’s retail investment market is showing signs of renewed activity. For those tracking the state’s commercial real estate landscape, the pickup feels less like a sudden reversal and more like a gradual acceptance of new pricing realities – one that, for patient and well-positioned investors, carries real opportunity.
Rising interest rates froze much of the market beginning in 2023, but sellers are now adjusting to a higher-cost environment that shows no sign of reverting. That recalibration, combined with tight retail supply and steady tenant demand, is bringing deals back to the table.
Charles Lewis, Associate and Co-Lead of Investment Sales at SHOP Companies, has had a front-row seat to this transition. Alongside his partner Jason Little, Lewis leads the firm’s multi-tenant retail disposition platform in Oklahoma, operating out of Oklahoma City as part of SHOP’s broader five-office footprint across Texas and Oklahoma. Their focus is narrow by design: open-air, multi-tenant retail assets typically ranging from $4 million to $25 million, exclusively within the state.
A Market Long Overlooked
Oklahoma doesn’t often appear on the shortlist of primary investment targets for institutional capital. Lewis argues that’s precisely what makes it worth a closer look. The state offers stable employment anchored by a high concentration of government jobs, strong consumer fundamentals, and a central location within a three-hour flight of virtually every major U.S. market. Its proximity to the Dallas-Fort Worth metro adds further appeal.
Oklahoma City ranks as the 20th largest city in the United States – a fact that tends to catch people off guard. For Lewis, that gap between perception and reality is where opportunity lives. “You can find deals,” he says. “You can find stones that are yet to be turned.”
The client base SHOP Companies serves reflects this dynamic. Lewis describes three distinct buyer profiles: large, nationally active private equity firms with assets under management in the billions; mid-sized private real estate investment firms, often Dallas- or Oklahoma City-based, managing between $75 million and $300 million; and individual private investors, typically owning one to three shopping centers in the state. Each group brings different motivations, but all three are increasingly active.
The Thaw After a Long Freeze
The more consequential story is what’s happened to deal velocity over the past 18 months. In 2021 and 2022, low capital costs allowed buyers to underwrite aggressively and sellers to command peak valuations. When rates climbed sharply in 2023, the math changed – but seller expectations didn’t.
Lewis describes the resulting standoff in concrete terms: sellers who had been told a property was worth $10 million were suddenly looking at offers closer to $7.5 million and refusing to engage. Buyers, meanwhile, couldn’t justify paying at levels that wouldn’t clear their return thresholds given the higher cost of capital. Transaction volumes across Oklahoma dropped sharply through 2023 and into 2024.
What’s changed entering 2026 is less about rates falling and more about seller psychology catching up. “We’re now in essentially year four of capital costs being significantly above where they were in 2021 and 2022,” Lewis notes. “Sellers have begun to adjust. They’re starting to realize they aren’t going back to the one, two, three percent interest rate environment.”
That recalibration is translating into more deals getting done. The gap between buyer and seller expectations hasn’t fully closed, but it’s narrowing – and the pipeline is moving again.
Keeping Fundamentals Tight
Beyond pricing psychology, a structural dynamic is reinforcing the investment case for existing retail: new development simply doesn’t pencil right now, and that’s keeping vacancy low and rents firm.
Elevated construction costs – a legacy of pandemic-era supply chain disruptions – and land that must compete with higher-density uses like multifamily have made ground-up open-air retail difficult to justify financially. “You just aren’t able to fetch the rents that would allow you to justify developing ground-up open-air retail product in the majority of the United States right now,” Lewis says.
At the same time, major retailers continue to announce aggressive expansion targets, with some committing to thousands of new locations by 2030. Essential services tenants and food and beverage operators are actively seeking space. The result is a consequential imbalance: demand is rising, supply isn’t keeping pace, and existing assets are benefiting.
Where development is occurring in Oklahoma, it typically involves municipal support – tax incentives or city funding that makes the numbers work. SHOP’s tenant representation team, led by Kendra Roberts, is involved in several larger power center developments across the state. But purely private ground-up retail development, without public subsidy, remains the exception.
A Complex Deal
These dynamics played out concretely in a deal that closed last month. Lewis and Little completed the sale of Mayfair in Oklahoma City – a four-building, 68,000-square-foot neighborhood shopping center that sold for $17 million. The transaction stands as the largest retail deal in Oklahoma so far this year and the second-largest neighborhood retail transaction in Oklahoma City’s history.
Built in the late 1940s as Oklahoma City’s first suburban shopping center, Mayfair had fallen into disrepair before being acquired in 2019 by Caleb Hill of Precor Ruffin, who undertook a full-scale redevelopment – renovating existing buildings to Class A condition and constructing a new building in 2024.
SHOP brought two of the four buildings to market in early 2025, with tenants including Michaels and Touchstone Imaging. The buyer, Humphreys Capital, an Oklahoma City-based investment firm, ultimately acquired all four buildings – the on-market pair plus two additional buildings added off-market during negotiations. The process spanned roughly ten months from the initial letter of intent to closing.
“A great buy for the buying party, a great exit for our client, and a very interesting transaction to have been a part of,” Lewis says.
Macro Versus Micro
Oklahoma’s micro fundamentals offer additional reasons for investor interest. The state recently flipped its migration patterns with Texas for the first time, with more people moving from Texas to Oklahoma than in the reverse direction. But broader forces warrant attention.
Lewis monitors geopolitical uncertainty, inflation, and softening consumer sentiment around non-essential spending carefully. “When the macro waves its hand, it rules all,” he acknowledges. Still, his view is that disciplined operators don’t wait for perfect conditions. “The good operators who aren’t relying on macro tailwinds are striking when a deal makes sense, no matter what stage of the market we’re in.”
For a market that has spent years being overlooked by institutional capital, Oklahoma’s retail sector appears to be entering a period in which narrowing bid-ask spreads, constrained supply, and steady tenant demand are aligning in favor of existing asset owners. Whether that momentum holds will depend on how the broader economic picture develops – but for investors already positioned in the state, the conditions look more favorable than they have since before rates began climbing.
About the Expert: Charles Lewis is an Associate and Co-Lead of Investment Sales at SHOP Companies, where he and his partner Jason Little lead the firm’s multi-tenant retail disposition platform in Oklahoma out of Oklahoma City. Specializing exclusively in open-air, multi-tenant retail assets typically ranging from $4 million to $25 million, Lewis brings a focused, market-specific expertise to one of the country’s more overlooked — and increasingly active — retail investment landscapes.
This article is based on information provided by the expert source cited above. It is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or real estate advice. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals before making any real estate or financial decisions.
