Austin booms as No. 6 metro for new homes being built in U.S.

Driven by population growth, nation-leading numbers of residential rooftops are popping up across Austin and the rest of Texas.Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Zillow, Construction Coverage found 32,294 new residential units were authorized in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metro in 2024. That figure landed Austin in sixth place among major metro areas for the total number of housing permits, including those for single-family homes, apartments, and condos. Dallas-Fort Worth was in the No. 1 spot with 71,788 new residential units authorized. Right behind DFW was the Houston metro area in second place, with 65,747 residential permits. In third place was the country’s largest metro, New York City (57,929 permits). Elsewhere in Texas, the San Antonio metro ranked 20th (14,857 permits).Construction Coverage also sorted major metro areas proportionally, based on the number of new housing units authorized per 1,000 existing homes in 2024. Raleigh, North Carolina, held the No. 1 spot (28.8 permits per 1,000 existing homes), followed by Austin at No. 2 (28.6), DFW at No. 3 (22.2), Houston at No. 4 (21.6), and San Antonio at No. 13 (13.6).A Newsweek analysis of Census Bureau data shows that across Texas, building permits for 225,756 new residential units were approved in 2024 — a trend fueled largely by activity in DFW, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. That put Texas atop the list of states building the most residential units for the year.Among the states, Construction Coverage ranks Texas sixth for the number of residential building permits approved in 2024 per 1,000 existing homes (17.9).Similarly, through the first eight months of 2025, more Census Bureau data showed 145,901 permits for new residential units were approved in Texas. That’s nearly 80,000 permits shy of the 2024 total.Extra housing is being built in Texas to meet demand spurred by population growth. From April 2020 to July 2024, the state’s population increased 7.3 percent, the Census Bureau says.While builders are busy constructing new housing in Texas, they’re not necessarily profiting as much as they used to from homebuilding activity.“Market conditions remain challenging, with two-thirds of builders reporting they are offering incentives to move buyers off the fence,” North Carolina homebuilder Buddy Hughes, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders, said in a December news release. “Meanwhile, builders are contending with rising material and labor prices, as tariffs are having serious repercussions on construction costs.”