A newly released report from ConsumerAffairs ranked Dallas No. 2 among U.S. cities leading in new-home construction.
Four cities in Texas made the top 10 list, with Houston taking the No. 1 spot with 11,047 new building permits issued in January and February 2025. Dallas was the runner-up, with 9,811 new building permits issued during the same period.
“Texas banks another win with a second major metro leading in homebuilding. Dallas ranks just behind Houston for number of new building permits,” read the May 22 report.
“Dallas also ranks fifth for new-construction sales in the same period, with close to 750 new homes sold. However, it has the highest prices for new-construction homes across all the major Texas metros: about $450,000 in February 2025.”
Of course, Houston arguably has much less friction for developers looking to build new homes. The city is considered the only major metro area in the United States without traditional zoning restrictions.
Zooming in on Dallas-Fort Worth, we can see that Dallas proper did not actually perform much of the heavy lifting. In January, the City of Dallas recorded 185 permit issuances and just 130 in February. That means Dallas only issued 315 permits out of DFW’s 9,811 total for the first two months of the year, or just over 3%.
However, that weighting could start to change.
The report highlighted the city’s recently approved housing code amendment, which is designed to help relieve Dallas’ affordability gap by promoting smaller-scale residential developments.
“The revision will allow up to eight dwelling units to be built using residential codes; previously, any structure with more than two units had to comply with the International Building Code, which is more complex — and therefore more expensive for builders to meet,” the report read.
Earlier this year, The Dallas Express reported that the DFW Metroplex was named one of the top U-Haul Growth Metros of 2024. DFW suburbs like McKinney, Plano, and Addison have been significant drivers of the metroplex’s impressive growth in recent years.
Elsewhere in the Lone Star State, San Antonio was ranked No. 8 in the country for new-home construction, while Austin secured the No. 9 spot.