Of the 100 largest U.S. metros, San Antonio-New Braunfels came in 14th for new-home construction in a Realtor.com ranking. No other Texas metro placed higher.
The company scored each metro on four measures: new builds as a share of all listings, the price gap between a median new build and a median existing home, the difference in flood, fire, air quality, wind and heat risk between new and existing homes, and how hot the new-construction market is. That last one rests on pageviews per listing and median time on the market. Twenty of the top 25 metros are in Sun Belt states, and San Antonio joined three other major Texas metros on the list.
“New construction is one of the most important ways to expand the supply of homes available to buyers, but the opportunity is not evenly distributed across the country,” Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com, said in a release. He added that Southern metros are building more and also offering newly built homes “at prices that compete with, and in some cases beat, existing homes.”
Builders cutting prices
A separate Realtor.com analysis ranked San Antonio third for the share of builders cutting prices on new homes. In that same analysis Austin landed at No. 5 and Dallas-Fort Worth at No. 8.
Timing may help buyers. Redfin found mid-September is the best time to land a deal in San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth.
Another Redfin report put the income needed to afford a median-priced home in the San Antonio metro at $62,859. That is 3.7 percent less than a year earlier, and the 13th biggest affordability improvement in the country. SmartAsset, the personal finance site, ranked Texas 18th among states for buyers under 35.
The metro’s population keeps growing, and builders are working to keep up with the demand for housing.
