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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real estate report

Houston new home prices are falling while sales climb, report says

Photo by André François McKenzie on Unsplash

Houston's housing market is showing good signs ahead of summer, according to the report.

A new HomesUSA.com report tracking the sales of new homes in the Houston metro has revealed a promising increase in May's new home sales, and improving prices are allowing new homes to sell at a slightly faster rate than in April.

The New Home Sales Report tracks three-month moving averages across Houston's housing market and also tracks real estate data in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio.

New home sales in Houston rose to 2,169 closed transactions in May, up from 1,958 in April, and they sold for near asking price with the average sales-to-list price ratio at 95.34 percent. The average price for a new home in the Houston area fell to $398,646 last month, a $4,355 decrease from April, the report found.

Current new home prices are still over $5,000 more expensive than they were this time last year, but the month-to-month downward trend could help ease prices further into the summer.

The average days on market — meaning the average time it takes to sell a new home — also showed a slight improvement month-over-month, at 108.90 days, down from 110.70 days in April.

New homes in the city are taking longer to sell now than they were a year ago, when the days on market was 96.26 days in May 2025. However, the report adds clarification that new homes typically spend more time on the market than existing homes because many are listed for sale while still under construction.

HomesUSA.com CEO Ben Caballero predicted May's new home sales could be "the highest for the year if interest rates remain at the current level or higher."

"May brought another encouraging increase in Houston new home sales, but the market is about where it was a year ago," he said. "Houston builders are seeing homes sell a little faster than they did in April, which is good news. But higher inventory, stubborn mortgage rates and mixed year-over-year comparisons show this spring market still requires patience, pricing discipline and close attention to buyer demand."

Houston nearly leads the nation with the second-highest rate of new home construction in 2026.

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