US new apartment construction hits 50-year high

Crane and skyscrapers under construction in San Jose, South San Francisco bay area Image: Sundry Photography via AdobeStock - stock.adobe.com)

Construction of new apartments has hit a 50-year high with more than 460,000 being completed this year alone.

That is according to new figures from property management software provider RealPage.

Over a million new units have been built in the past three years, making it a record level of construction.

Most of those new apartments were on the higher end, according to RealPage.

But new construction has started to fall sharply this year amid financing challenges and higher interest rates.

That is likely to result in lower levels of supply going into 2026, RealPage warned.

A separate survey by RentCafe forecast the completion of 460,860 this year, with New York the top builder with 33,000 rentals.

Households have grown at a rapid rate after the pandemic as job growth boomed and young adults moved out of their parents’ homes, RentCafe said.

Almost two-thirds of the apartments built during the pandemic boom were built in just 20 high-growth metro areas.

The top metro area for apartment construction since 2020 was Dallas, Texas. That was followed by New York and Houston, Texas in second and third place respectively.

Top 20 US Metros by New Apartments Completed Between 2020 & 2022 (Table: RentCafeSource: Yardi Matrix)