A new housing report has revealed that Austin built the third-highest number of new affordable apartments in the U.S. from 2020-2024.

The study from apartment search platform RentCafe analyzed new affordable apartment construction rates over the last five years across 146 U.S. cities. For the purpose of the study, RentCafe defined "affordable housing" as "residential buildings in which all units are income-restricted." Their rent prices also couldn't exceed 30 percent of each market's Area Median Income (AMI).

The findings show 13,343 new "affordable" (income-restricted) apartments have been developed in Austin from 2020-2024. These apartments make up about 14 percent of all new housing in the city.

Nationally, about 310,000 new affordable apartments were built over the last five years, and nearly a third of them were completed just in 2024 alone, the report said.

"Notably, affordable housing is starting to make up a larger portion of all new apartment construction," the report's author wrote. "In 2024, nearly 14 percent of all new apartments were income-restricted — up from just under 9 percent ten years earlier — indicating a growing emphasis on affordability in new development."

Austin's affordable apartment construction ranked third nationally after Seattle, Washington (No. 1), and New York City, New York (No. 2). Seattle led the nation with 14,290 new income-restricted apartments built in the last five years, and New York City trailed behind by just 50 units.

Furthermore, Austin has more than doubled its rate of new affordable apartments when compared to the pre-pandemic period from 2015-2019. During that time, about 5,500 affordable units were developed. Compared to Austin's post-pandemic apartment construction, that revealed a five-year surge of 142.29 percent.

In RentCafe's separate ranking of the rental markets experiencing the fastest growth in affordable apartment construction, Austin fell into 8th place, and San Antonio landed on top with a 222.54 percent increase in new affordable apartments.

"Affordable housing construction [across the nation] rose 73 percent compared to the previous five-year period (2015–2019), far outpacing the 36 percent growth in overall apartment construction," the report said.

The top 10 U.S. markets with the most new affordable apartments are:

• No. 1 – Seattle, Washington
• No. 2 – New York City, New York
• No. 3 – Austin, Texas
• No. 4 – Twin Cities, Minnesota
• No. 5 – Atlanta, Georgia
• No. 6 – Denver, Colorado
• No. 7 – Los Angeles, California
• No. 8 – Bay Area, California
• No. 9 – San Antonio, Texas
• No. 10 – Miami, Florida