Rise of the renter

Dallas-Fort Worth added more apartments in last decade than any other U.S. metro, says report

DFW will end this decade with 149,000 new apartments having been built in the last 10 years.

Photo courtesy of 5 Mockingbird

You might call this the Decade of the Renter in Dallas-Fort Worth. New data shows DFW added more new apartments from 2010 through 2019 than any other U.S. metro area.

In a housing review of the 2010s published December 16, apartment website RentCafé estimates DFW will end this decade with 149,000 new apartments having been built during the 10-year span. That eclipses the No. 2 metro area, New York City, with an estimated 125,100 new apartments added during this decade.

In third place is Houston, with an estimated 114,100 new apartments constructed in this decade, followed by Washington, D.C. (113,300) and Los Angeles (98,000).

Two other Texas metros made the top 20:

Austin, claiming the No. 8 spot with 75,400 new apartments.
San Antonio, grabbing the No. 13 spot with 47,700 new apartments.

All told, the four major metro areas in Texas have added 386,200 new apartments from 2010 through 2019, RentCafé data shows.

In May, RealPage Inc., a Richardson-based provider of property management software, reported the Dallas side of the Metroplex had accounted for 81 percent of the region’s new apartments built this decade. In RealPage’s tally, Dallas was the lone market in the U.S. to land three submarkets in the top 15 for apartment completions from 2010 through 2019 — Intown Dallas (14,097 new apartments), Frisco (12,299), and Allen/McKinney (10,335). From 2010 through 2019, Intown Dallas alone represented almost 10 percent of the region’s new apartments, RealPage says.

The furious pace of apartment construction in DFW has helped accommodate explosive population growth. From April 2010 to July 2018, the metro area’s population soared by more than 1.1 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“How much more can Dallas grow? Unlike some other major metro areas, it’s got nothing but land surrounding it: Dallas is the largest inland metropolitan area in the U.S. without any navigable link to the ocean,” real estate investment platform Roofstock says. “While many factors are contributing to Dallas’ population boom — including affordability, climate and accessibility — much of the credit goes to its thriving jobs market and diverse economy.”

In terms of population growth, Houston nipped on DFW’s heels from 2010 to 2018, adding almost 1.08 million residents, the Census Bureau says. During the same period, comparatively rapid growth occurred in the Austin metro area (nearly 452,000 new residents) and San Antonio metro area (more than 375,000 new residents).

As Texas’ major metro areas keep experiencing a population surge, the rise of the apartment renter promises to continue.

RealPage data published December 9 shows construction of 22,879 new apartments had been approved from October 2018 to October 2019 in the Houston area. That’s a year-over-year jump of 77.8 percent.

The numbers for DFW (19,562 permits, up 7.3 percent) and Austin (13,981, up 15 percent) were lower, but they still ranked among RealPage’s top 10 metro markets for the number of apartment construction permits issued.

Within U.S. metro areas, the cities of Houston, Austin, and San Antonio ranked among the top 10 places for apartment construction permits issued from October 2018 to October 2019, according to RealPage.

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safe suburbs

Dallas neighbor is proclaimed the second safest city in the U.S.

City of Frisco TX - City Hall/Facebook

Frisco residents feel right at home in the second-safest city in America.

One of Dallas' buzziest suburbs is also one of the safest in the U.S.: It's none other than Frisco, which was declared the No. 2 safest city in America for 2025 in a new study by personal finance advisors MoneyGeek.

The website's experts used an unusual metric: They looked at FBI crime statistics from 2023 to determine the cost of crime in 292 U.S. cities with populations over 100,000 residents.

The estimated cost of crime — otherwise known as the "societal cost of crime per resident" – was a mere $287 in 2023 in Frisco. That cost per capita is far lower than the national crime cost, which was $2,178 per resident.

The report also analyzed the city's violent crime and property crime rates per 100,000 residents, and Frisco again came through with flying colors, logging the third-lowest rate of violent crime in 2023, or only 86 crimes committed for every 100,000 residents.

The city didn't fare as well on property crime rate: There were 1,357 property crimes committed in 2023, the 40th lowest rate out of all 292 U.S. cities. It's still better than most places in the country, and way better than Oakland, California, which had the highest property crime rate in the nation with 10,117 crimes committed per 100,000 residents.

Finally, MoneyGeek determined each city's total cost of crime, which the study defines as the "economic losses attributed to crime and its cost to society (individuals, community and nationally) in millions."

In this metric, Frisco had the 11th lowest total crime cost, which came out to more than $65.5 million in 2023.

While some of these statistics may seem damning, Tulane University associate professor of political science Geoffrey T. Dancy warns it is unwise to make assumptions about a city based solely on its crime rates.

"We live in an unequal society," said Dancy in the report. "One often overlooked indicator of that inequality is who gets to engage in the politics of safety. Those who are objectively safe often fear crime and act on it in the counterproductive policies they support. Those who are actually victimized by crime and terrorized by gun violence pay the price and are rarely heard."

Other safe Texas cities in the report include Houston (No. 13), Plano (No. 18), Sugar Land (No. 20), McKinney (No. 22), Round Rock (No. 26), Grand Prairie (No. 42), and League City (No. 48).

In a comparison of just large U.S. cities, Arlington ranked as the No. 12 safest nationally with crime costs amounting to $1,515 per capita.

The top 10 safest American cities for 2025 are:

No. 1 – Ramapo Town, New York
No. 2 – Frisco, Texas
No. 3 – Irvine, California
No. 4 – Fishers, Indiana
No. 5 – Lakewood Township, New Jersey
No. 6 – Cary, North Carolina
No. 7 – Pembroke Pines, Florida
No. 8 – Elk Grove, California
No. 9 – Surprise, Arizona
No. 10 – Sterling Heights, Michigan

In a separate MoneyGeek analysis of the safest small cities in each state, Sachse (located 26 miles northeast of downtown Dallas) came out on top over all other tiny Texas towns with populations between 30,000 and 100,000 residents. In the national comparison, Sachse is the 40th safest small city in America.

For the purpose of the study, violent crime rates were determined based on the number of murders and non-negligent manslaughters, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults per 100,000 residents; and property crimes were defined as the rates of burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft offenses per 100,000 residents.

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