According to Realtor.com Research, the country is facing a significant housing shortage that's affecting affordability for families looking to buy their first homes. To help address this gap, Realtor.com has released its annual guide ranking the top ten metropolitan areas where new construction is thriving and offering the best opportunities for homebuyers. These rankings look at factors like how many new homes are available, their pricing compared to existing homes, environmental sustainability considerations, and overall market desirability.
The research shows some interesting patterns about where new construction is booming. Six of the top ten metros are located in North or South Carolina, with two additional ones in Tennessee, meaning eight of the ten best markets for new construction are in the South. This concentration reflects local building advantages in the region, including more available and affordable land, zoning that's friendlier to developers, and building codes that are less restrictive than what builders face elsewhere. In contrast, there's only one Western metro and one Midwestern metro in the top ten, with nothing from the Northeast, showing a clear regional divide in where new homes are being built successfully.
Most of these thriving construction markets are smaller cities rather than the largest metropolitan areas in America. Charleston, South Carolina ranks first, offering new homes at substantially lower prices than existing ones in the market. Greenville, South Carolina comes in second, also benefiting from strong employment and population growth. Boise, Idaho is the third-ranked metro and the only Western market in the top ten, with an unusually high percentage of new construction compared to existing home listings. Charlotte, North Carolina rounds out the fourth position and is the largest metro on the list, though most of the other markets are considerably smaller and show signs of rapid growth and development activity.
What I'm seeing locally here in the Bay Area and across the East Bay tells a different story than what's happening in these booming Sunbelt metros. We're dealing with the opposite challenge—land constraints, restrictive zoning, high construction costs, and regulatory barriers that make new building extremely difficult. While Charleston, Greenville, and Boise are benefiting from affordable land and builder-friendly policies, our Fremont market and the broader Bay Area continue to struggle with affordability precisely because we can't build new housing at scale like these other regions can. If we want to compete on housing accessibility for our workforce, we need to look hard at what's working in those Southern and Mountain markets and seriously consider whether our local policies are serving our communities' housing needs.
