HOUSTON – Building is bigger in Texas.
Dallas is No. 1 in the national rankings of housing starts and Houston is No. 2, according to Metrostudy Inc.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area had 31,049 single-family home starts for the 12-month period ending June 30. Houston was second with 27,114 starts.
The two Texas cities had ranked at the top of the nation as the state continues to growth in population and add new jobs.
Even Austin, a much smaller city, fared well. Metrostudy ranked Austin eighth nationally with 16,088 single-family home starts.
Houston’s new home construction is not the only residential sector to perform well. The existing home market is hot. This year is expected be a record-setter for existing home sales in the Energy Capital of the World.
So far this year, 46,580 single-family homes have been sold in the Houston area, according to the Houston Association of Realtors. That’s 6.8 percent over the year-to-date sales of 2016, which was the strongest year ever for Houston home sales.
So with the spring selling season completed, it looks like a certainty that 2017 will easily shatter all previous records.
More than 8,000 existing homes were sold in both May and June, the first two times that monthly sales totals have ever broken the 8,000-sales mark.