D-FW is still second in the country this year for construction starts

Written by Steve Brown, Real Estate Editor for The Dallas Morning News

Even with a dip in construction activity this year, Dallas-Fort Worth is hanging on to its ranking as the county's second biggest building market.

During the first five months of 2018, construction starts in the D-FW area totaled almost $8.8 billion. Only the New York City metro area with $15 billion in starts has had more new building projects this year, according to reports from Dodge Data & Analytics.

Building starts in both D-FW and New York are down this year from the first five months of 2017.

North Texas building starts are 16 percent behind where they were in the first five months of last year due primarily to a slowdown in commercial construction.

Nonresidential building is down by a third so far in 2018, according to Dodge. And even local residential building activity is running 1 percent behind where it was at this point last year.

More than half of the top 15 U.S. building markets have had declines in construction starts through May of 2018. 

The biggest fall off has been in Los Angeles where building starts are down 47 percent. Las Vegas has seen the greatest gain in construction. Building starts in the Nevada gambling and entertainment mecca are up a stagger 83 percent.

Along with D-FW, both Houston and Austin made it into Dodge's list of the 15 busiest building markets so far this year.

In 2017 the D-FW saw a record $22 billion in construction starts.

Commercial building activity last year totaled $9.6 billion in the area - a 10 percent gain from 2016 totals. And residential building last year hit $12.6 billion in D-FW, 2 percent higher than in 2016.

Declines this year in new office and apartment starts have accounted for cutbacks in commercial construction in North Texas.

Source: Dodge Data & Analytics