New homes on paper: every US metro area's building permits since 2004
Permit offices across the United States authorized 1,431,616 new housing units in 2025, 34% fewer than at the 2005 high and 3.1% fewer than in 2024. Apartment-scale buildings now take a larger share than they did before the bust: 34% of units from 2021 to 2025, against 19% in 2004–2006.
Single-family2–4 units5+ units
Most units, 2025
Highest rate, 2021–2025
Units per 1,000 residents a year, metro areas of 250,000+
- Wilmington20.1
- North Port17.6
- Myrtle Beach17.3
- Cape Coral16.5
- Austin15.4
- Ocala14.8
- Daphne14.2
- Lakeland13.8
- Raleigh13.3
- Fayetteville, AR12.9
Record year in 2025
In 2025, 17 metro areas had their busiest year since 2004; the largest:
- North Port17,642
- Columbus, OH15,757
- Fayetteville, AR8,961
- Knoxville7,855
- Savannah5,371
- Spartanburg4,359
- Lafayette, IN4,058
- Gainesville, FL3,674
- Bridgeport3,478
- Hickory3,136
State by state
Units authorized per 1,000 residents a year, 2021–2025. The national rate was 4.7.
Briefings
- Which metro areas authorize the most new homes
Dallas–Fort Worth and Houston lead; the top ten take about a quarter of the national count.
- Building permits per 1,000 residents, metro by metro
Raw totals favor big cities; a per-resident rate shows where building runs fastest.
- Houses or apartments: how the permit mix shifted
About a third of new units now sit in buildings of five or more, up from under a fifth in 2004–2006.
- The 2000s boom, the bust and the recovery in permits
US permits fell 73% from 2005 to 2009; only some places have built back past their boom pace.
- New housing permits by state: totals, rates and records
Texas and Florida authorize more than a quarter of all new US homes.
- Duplexes to fourplexes in the permit record
Buildings of two to four units supply under 4% of new homes, but not everywhere.
- What a building permit count can and cannot tell you
Permits are authorizations, partly estimated, and only where permits are required.