San Antonio is trying to accommodate its housing needs by building more homes than most other U.S. cities, a new report has found.

According to a new ConsumerAffairs report, San Antonio has the eighth highest rate of new home construction in the nation for 2025. The research platform's experts analyzed new building permits and new construction home sales from January and February 2025 in the 150 largest U.S. cities.

Houston (No. 1) and Dallas (No. 2) led the nation as the top two cities building the most new homes for 2025.

The findings revealed there were 2,013 new building permits issued during the first two months of the year in San Antonio, and 748 newly built homes were sold during that same time. San Antonio is building more new homes than Austin, which ranked one spot behind as No. 9.

The city is keeping pace with consumer trends: According to recent study by the National Association of Home Builders, more than three in five homebuyers would prefer to purchase a new-construction home over an existing one, the ConsumerAffairs report says.

The city offers more affordability than other highly ranked Texas cities with median home prices coming out to about $270,000.

"Homebuyers who take advantage of the Alamo City’s relative affordability may want to consider putting that extra cash toward solar energy for their new home," the report's author wrote. "San Antonio boasts some of the most affordable solar energy in the U.S., and a 2022 report by the research and policy organization Environment America Research & Policy Center ranked San Antonio the best city in Texas and fifth best in the nation for total solar power production."

Elsewhere in Texas
Houston is dominating other housing markets with the highest growth rate in new building permits, totaling more than 11,000 permits between the first two months of the year. The city also leads with the highest rate of new construction homes sold during the same time period, with more than 1,300 sales.

ConsumerAffairs says Houston is the only major U.S. metro that doesn't implement zoning laws, meaning housing density is not regulated and communities don't need to be separated by "use type." Many rules that are in place are in favor of dense housing development.

"The absence of these laws has contributed to Houston’s infamous sprawl, but it’s a boon for developers and homebuilders, who have far fewer restrictions to navigate when constructing new homes," the report said. "After 1998 reforms to the city’s development ordinance lowered the minimum lot size for single-family homes from 5,000 to 1,400 square feet, more than 25,000 new homes were developed on these new, smaller lots between 1999 and 2016."

The top 10 cities with the highest rates of new home construction in the U.S. are:

• No. 1 – Houston, Texas
• No. 2 – Dallas, Texas
• No. 3 – Phoenix, Arizona
• No. 4 – Atlanta, Georgia
• No. 5 – New York, New York
• No. 6 – Charlotte, North Carolina
• No. 7 – Orlando, Florida
• No. 8 – San Antonio, Texas
• No. 9 – Austin, Texas
• No. 10 – Tampa, Florida