Top 10 Cities With the Highest Growth in New-Construction Homes

America’s housing shortage is taking center stage in the 2024 presidential election—and it has contributed to a sharp rise in home costs, with increased demand and limited inventory pushing up valuations to the highest level since the 1950s.

Part of the solution is undoubtedly more new-home construction. And certain cities are ramping up on new builds better than others.

Cities where new construction is booming

Realtor.com® has pinpointed the 10 metros with the highest annual growth in new construction.

“In these metros, strong price growth and high demand in the existing-home market over the past several years have enticed builders to focus on expanding their operations there to capitalize on profit opportunities and fill the gap created by low existing-home inventory,” says Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner.

And in case you’re worried that you’ll pay a premium for new builds over existing homes, that’s not necessarily the case. According to a July report from the National Association of Realtors®, the median price of an existing home was $422,600. For a new home, it was $429,800.

Plus, these prices vary a lot by area, given the supply and demand of homes there.

In fact, two of the 10 highest-growth new-construction metros—Bend, OR, and Pensacola, FL—have a lower median list price for new-construction homes than existing homes.

And when you consider that new homes might require less maintenance and come with builder incentives (like help with closing costs or even lower interest rates), then you might come out ahead with new construction after all. (Miami is the one town where new construction is priced much higher than existing construction, so you might not make out better financially regardless of the perks offered.)

These cities also mean that there might be less stress and competition for a new-construction home, given there are so many options—and this can have a softening impact on prices.

“Buyers in these markets, who may have been priced out of the existing-home market in recent years, may be able to find a newly built home within their budget,” says Berner.

Here are the cities with the highest new-construction listing growth year over year, along with the median price of these properties compared with older homes in the area.