a league apart

Houston tops the charts for 3rd most new apartments built in U.S. since 2020

Luxe apartments like the Novel River Oaks are big draws for renters.

Shiny new apartment complexes are popping up everywhere around the country, but no more than two cities can claim quite as many as Houston.

The Houston metro area, in fact, has had the third most new apartments constructed since the beginning of the "pandemic building boom" in 2020 in the U.S., according to a new study by apartment rental marketplace RentCafe.

Third highest construction rate from 2020 to 2022
The construction analysis revealed 53,741 new apartment units opened in Houston between 2020 and 2022. Houston's numbers far outshine one of the biggest renter metros in the state – Austin (No. 4) – by nearly 8,700 units.

"The metro is also home to several major companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron — both of which expanded their presence in the area during those three years — that attract a large number of workers, further supporting demand for rental apartments," the report's author said.

Broken down by city, Houston constructed 28,423 new apartment units between 2020 and 2022, while Katy built the second highest number of new apartments: 4,859. Spring built 3,878 new units within the same time frame, and Richmond made up 2,324 new apartment units.

The only two cities to outrank Houston are New York (No. 2) and Dallas (No. 3), which developed a whopping 66,070 and 76,660 new apartment units, respectively, within the same time period. Austin and Miami round out the top five with 45,051 and 42,960 new units built between 2020 and 2022.

The remaining top 10 metros that completed the most new apartments between 2020 and 2022 are:

No. 6 – Washington, D.C. (42,723 units)
No. 7 – Los Angeles (39,842 units)
No. 8 – Atlanta (39,467 units)
No. 9 – Seattle (36,952 units)
No. 10 – Twin Cities, Minnesota (31,662 units)

New apartments to meet rising demand in 2023
Houston may have topped the charts for new apartments built during the pandemic, but it slipped out of the top five in the analysis of projected completed units in 2023. The study found that developers are set to build 13,637 new rental units by the end of December, which is 19,364 fewer than New York, which claimed the No. 1 spot in 2023.

The report commented that Houston's "slower" apartment growth earned it No. 8 in the ranking of the overall top 20 U.S. metros for construction in 2023. But the city's focus is not necessarily on building apartments.

"[The Houston] metro (along with Dallas, Austin and San Antonio) is keen on building single-family rentals to meet the needs of those who are not yet ready to become homeowners," the report said.

The top 10 metros predicted to build the most new apartments in 2023 are:

No. 1 – New York City (33,001 units)
No. 2 – Dallas (23,659 units)
No. 3 – Austin (23,434 units)
No. 4 – Miami (20,904 units)
No. 5 – Atlanta (18,408 units)
No. 6 – Phoenix (14,629 units)
No. 7 – Los Angeles (14,087 units)
No. 8 – Houston (13,637 units)
No. 9 – Washington, D.C. (13,189 units)
No. 10 – Denver (12,581 units)

The full report can be found on rentcafe.com.

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So hot right now

Houston nails down No. 8 spot among fastest-moving luxury home markets

TK Images for Martha Turner Sotheby's International Realty

11095 Memorial Drive is for sale for $8.8 million.

For-sale signs on the lawns of luxury homes in Houston-area communities like Bellaire, River Oaks, West University Place, and The Woodlands are disappearing faster than in most U.S. markets.

November’s Realtor.com Luxury Housing Report shows luxury homes in the Houston metro area spent a median 61 days on the market in November, up 3.4 percent from last November. That puts the Houston metro in eighth place among the country’s fastest-moving luxury home markets.

Asking prices for Houston-area listings among top-tier luxury homes started at $794,576 in November, according to the Realtor.com report.

The Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) says stepped-up activity in the luxury home market helped boost the average single-family home price in the area to $422,552 in November. The luxury market — homes priced at $1 million and above — was the region’s top-performing home category in November, according to HAR, with sales up 23.4 percent compared with the same time in 2024.

The Realtor.com report ranks San Jose, California, as the fastest-moving metro for luxury home sales in November. There, luxury homes spent a median 56 days on the market, down 6.7 percent from last November.

“Luxury home dynamics are increasingly driven by local factors rather than national trends,” Antony Smith, senior economist at Realtor.com, says in a release. “Some high-cost metros are experiencing brisk demand and fast turnover, while others face slower sales even at elevated price points. Understanding these local dynamics is key for both buyers and sellers in today's luxury market.”

Roughly 200 miles west of Houston, the San Antonio metro lands on Realtor.com’s list of the country’s slowest-moving markets for luxury homes. San Antonio-area luxury homes lingered on the market for 99 days in November, up seven percent from the same time last year. That gave San Antonio eighth place on the list of the country’s slowest-moving luxury home markets.

Asking prices for San Antonio-area listings among top-tier luxury homes started at $766,548 in November, according to the report.

In November, 5.6 percent of home prices fell into the $750,000-and-above category, according to the San Antonio Board of Realtors (SABOR).

Bend, Oregon, tops Realtor.com’s list of the slow-moving markets for luxury homes. In the Bend metro area, luxury homes were stuck on the market for a median 146 days in November, up 14.1 percent from the same period in 2024.

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