Real estate pros may be smart to carve out a new-home niche in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, region. The metro area saw the highest number of new-home construction in the first quarter, according to new data from Metrostudy Inc.
Home construction in the metroplex totaled more than 34,500 units on an annualized basis, topping Houston’s 30,206. Central Florida was third in construction, with about 28,000 homes last year.
Metrostudy says that housing starts were down in half of the top 10 building markets in the first quarter. Affordability issues may curtail growth in new-home construction this year, too, says Paige Shipp, regional director of Metrostudy’s Dallas region.
“Based on last year’s slowdown, there was concern that the market cooled,” Shipp says. “Many builders responded by shifting their product offering to more affordable homes and decreasing base prices.” In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, builders responded to affordability concerns by starting more homes between $250,000 and $350,000 in the first quarter.
The top 10 markets for new-home construction in the first quarter:
- Dallas-Fort Worth: 34,523 (annual starts)
- Houston: 30,206
- Central Florida: 28,082
- Atlanta: 24,423
- Phoenix-Tucson: 24,145
- Denver-Colorado Springs: 20,039
- Southern California: 18,066
- Austin, Texas: 16,674
- Northern California: 15,793
- Salt Lake City: 12,917
Source: “DFW Tops the U.S. in New Home Starts,” The Dallas Morning News (May 6, 2019) and Metrostudy
