10 Cities Leading the Way in New-Home Construction

Three in five homebuyers nationwide reportedly would prefer to buy a new-construction home rather than an existing one, but with an estimated housing deficit of 3.7 million homes, not every city in the U.S. has adequate supply.

To identify which cities have the most new-construction homes, consumer news platform Consumer Affairs analyzed the volume of new building permits issued and the number of new-construction homes sold in the most populous 150 U.S. metros during early 2025.

Researchers found that Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix lead the way in providing new homes, with Atlanta, New York City, Charlotte, N.C., and Orlando, Fla., among several others, following suit.

As the saying goes, everything’s bigger in Texas—including the residential construction boom. In the first two months of 2025, Houston saw more than 11,000 new building permits issued. That’s the highest volume in the nation, accounting for more than 6% of the permits issued across all 150 cities we analyzed and nearly 37% of the permits issued across the 10 Texas cities on our list. Houston also had the highest number of new-construction homes sold in this period — 1,314 in just two months, with a noteworthy 15% increase from January (610 new homes sold) to February (704).

That H-Town leads the nation in homebuilding is no coincidence. The city is the only major metro in the U.S. to lack zoning laws, which means it doesn’t directly regulate density or separate communities by use type. The absence of these laws has contributed to Houston’s infamous sprawl, but it’s a boon for developers and homebuilders, who have far fewer restrictions to navigate when constructing new homes.