They come, we build
Austin booms among the nation's top 5 markets for new apartments
It’s not all in your head. Those new apartments around town did just pop up — and it’s happening in big numbers in Austin and around the state, according to a new study.
RentCafe estimates 10,783 new apartments will be built in the Austin metro by the end of 2019 — the fifth highest projection nationally. More than 60 percent of those new units will rise within the city of Austin proper.
And these aren’t vanity projects. With more than 50,000 new residents moving to the Austin area between 2017 and 2018, we need all the apartments we can get.
Austin leads the region in terms of projected new apartment units at 6,664, followed by Georgetown (976 units), Round Rock (666 units), Leander (613 units), San Marcos (565 units), and Pflugerville (383 units).
Most of Texas is booming, too. No. 1 on RentCafe's list is Dallas-Fort Worth, with 22,196 new units expected by the end of the year. No. 10 Houston is expected to bring 7,143 new units to the region, with about half rising just within the city of Houston. Meanwhile, 3,510 new units will be built in San Antonio, a steep decline of 41 percent from the 5,993 units built there in 2018.
Nationally, Seattle makes for a distant second behind DFW with 13,682 new units expected, followed by New York City, which was No. 1 in 2018, with 13,418 units planned for this year.
Unlike the Lone Star State, the nation as a whole is seeing a slump in apartment construction. The 299,442 new apartments expected in 2019 represent an 8.2 percent drop from 2018’s 326,240 new units, which also were weaker numbers than in 2017, when 331,765 new apartments were built.