Shiny new apartment complexes are popping up everywhere around the country, but no other metro area can claim quite as many as Dallas-Fort Worth.

The Metroplex, in fact, has had more new apartments constructed since the beginning of the "pandemic building boom" in 2020 than any other U.S. metro area, according to a new study by apartment rental marketplace RentCafe.

Highest construction rate from 2020 to 2022
The construction analysis revealed 76,660 new apartment units opened in DFW between 2020 and 2022. These numbers far outshine one of the biggest renter metros in the country - New York City (No. 2) - by nearly 10,600 units.

"The booming job market in the Metroplex (supported by the industrial and tech sectors) fueled this construction spree," the report's author said.

Broken down by city, Dallas constructed 13,741 new apartment units between 2020 and 2022, while Fort Worth built the second highest number of new apartments: 9,672. McKinney built 2,586 new units within the same time frame, and Farmers Branch made up 3,140 new apartment units.

Dallas-Fort Worth is followed less closely by its Texas neighbors Houston (No. 3) and Austin (No. 4), which only developed 53,741 and 45,051 new apartment units, respectively, within the same period. Miami rounds out the top five with 42,960 new units built between 2020 and 2022.

The remaining top 10 metros that completed the most new apartments between 2020 and 2022 are:

• No. 6 – Washington, D.C. (42,723 units)
• No. 7 – Los Angeles, California (39,842 units)
• No. 8 – Atlanta, Georgia (39,467 units)
• No. 9 – Seattle, Washington (36,952 units)
• No. 10 – Twin Cities, Minnesota (31,662 units)

New apartments to meet rising demand in 2023
Dallas-Fort Worth may have topped the charts for new apartments built during the pandemic, but it has fallen slightly in completed units built thus far in 2023. The study found that developers are set to build 23,659 new rental units by the end of December, which is nearly 10,000 fewer than New York, which reclaimed the No. 1 spot in 2023.

Demand for more housing is still at an all-time high in the Metroplex, as the North Texas region gained more residents than any other American metro between 2021 and 2022, the report says. Census data estimates nearly 170,400 new residents arrived in Dallas-Fort Worth at that time, bringing the population total to 7.9 million. That's quite the population boom, which only continues to grow bigger and bigger.

"[Dallas-Fort Worth's construction rate is] still not enough to meet the soaring demand for apartments throughout the metro, especially as America’s new boomtown is facing a severe shortage of housing units," the report says. "And, more and more people are expected to relocate to this thriving area in the coming years as businesses continue to expand."

The top 10 metros predicted to build the most new apartments in 2023 are:

• No. 1 – New York City, New York (33,001 units)
• No. 2 – Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas (23,659 units)
• No. 3 – Austin, Texas (23,434 units)
• No. 4 – Miami, Florida (20,904 units)
• No. 5 – Atlanta, Georgia (18,408 units)
• No. 6 – Phoenix, Arizona (14,629 units)
• No. 7 – Los Angeles, California (14,087 units)
• No. 8 – Houston, Texas (13,637 units)
• No. 9 – Washington, D.C. (13,189 units)
• No. 10 – Denver, Colorado (12,581 units)