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Houston booms as No. 2 metro for new homes being built in U.S.

Houston landed in first place among major metro areas for the total number of housing permits in 2024.
Driven by population growth, more residential rooftops are popping up across Houston and the rest of Texas than anywhere else in America.
Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Zillow, Construction Coverage found 65,747 new residential units were authorized in greater Houston (named as Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands in the report) in 2024. That figure landed Houston in second place among major metro areas for the total number of housing permits, including those for single-family homes, apartments, and condos.
Just ahead of Houston was the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, which took first place with 71,788 residential permits approved in 2024. In third place was the country’s largest metro, New York City (57,929 permits).
Elsewhere in Texas, the Austin metro ranked sixth (32,294 permits), and the San Antonio metro ranked 20th (14,857 permits).
Construction Coverage also sorted major metro areas 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 building permits for 225,756 new residential units were approved in 2024 in Texas — 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.
Through the first eight months of last year, 145,901 permits for new residential units were approved in Texas, according to Census Bureau data. That’s nearly 80,000 permits shy of the 2024 total.
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).
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 a lot 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.”
