Des Moines, IA, is the leader in homebuilding and affordability thanks to its pro-housing policies and aggressive construction activity.
As surging mortgage rates and stubborn inflation squeeze Americans' budgets, 10 cities across the South and Midwest stand out as rare strongholds of aggressive homebuilding and relative affordability, led by a thriving Heartland construction hub.
Nationally, the U.S. faces a deficit of over 4 million homes, the byproduct of decades of systemic underbuilding fueled by scarce buildable land, regulatory hurdles, strict zoning laws, and high material costs.
This chronic shortage of new homes continues to put upward pressure on housing prices, forcing many aspiring buyers to delay homeownership and rent indefinitely.
However, the 2026 Realtor.com® Metro Report Cards serve as a reminder that all real estate is local. Market conditions vary dramatically by location, with some metros in well-supplied regions exceeding expectations when it comes to construction and affordability.
"The challenges facing prospective homebuyers are not uniform across the country. Some places punch above their weight class in terms of homebuilding and subsequently offer more affordable homes to buyers, while others struggle to deliver new inventory and have housing markets that remain inaccessible to many," says Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner.
The 2026 State Report Cards released in June highlighted top-performing states, led by Indiana.
Building on that earlier analysis, the latest study focuses on homebuilding and affordability at the metro level to pinpoint where homes are actually being built, and where buyers can still find properties within their budgets.
(Realtor.com) The 10 metros leading the class of 2026
- Des Moines, IA
- Raleigh, NC
- Columbia, SC
- Houston, TX
- Indianapolis, IN
- Austin, TX
- Jacksonville, FL
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Palm Bay, FL
- Columbus, OH
Ranking and grading the metros
The 100 largest metros by population were ranked on a 100-point scale based on two criteria carrying equal weight: housing affordability and homebuilding.
Affordability, which accounts for half of the final score, measures how accessible homeownership is for typical earners and takes into account the Realtors® Affordability Score.
The remaining half is determined by homebuilding activity. Eighty percent of that score comes from the permit-to-population ratio measuring how many homes are being built relative to the number of people in the metro. The remaining 20% comes from the new-construction premium—the extra market cost of buying a brand-new home versus an existing one.
Each metro on the list receives a total score out of 100 and is assigned a grade from F to A+.
The 10 cities at the peak of the ranking earned a grade from A- to A+ and each scored higher than 50 on both the affordability and homebuilding components.
"This shows that each of the top performers displayed a balanced mix of favorable current affordability conditions and healthy future inventory growth to sustain them, rather than being propped up by just one side of the ranking criteria," notes Berner.
Only two metros—Des Moines and Raleigh—were awarded a grade of A+, but Iowa's state capital, dubbed "Niceville USA," edged out the competition thanks to its best-in-class overall score driven by an impressive affordability component.
The Valedictorian: Des Moines, IA
This three-bedroom home in Des Moines, IA, is listed for $349,900, which aligns with the market's median home price. (Realtor.com) Des Moines' permit-to-population ratio is 1.85, meaning that the metro permits 85% more new homes for construction than would be expected based on its population and the national average for permitting, making the Midwestern metro a homebuilding powerhouse.
More importantly for buyers, the median earner in Des Moines spends just 27.5% of their $86,600 median annual income on a monthly payment for the median-priced home of $349,903.
Des Moines’ overall affordability score of 0.894 far outpaces the national average of 0.675, signalling that residents at all levels of income have plenty of housing choices within their means.
"It’s really about high purchasing power," Iowa Realtors statewide housing analyst Les Sulgrove tells Realtor.com. "Our cost of living is below the national average, but our major employers in finance, insurance, and ag-tech still pay solid, competitive wages."
Sulgrove explains that because the Des Moines metro still has room to expand outward, land remains affordable, keeping median home prices well below national figures.
The secret to Des Moines' success, according to Sulgrove, is proactive local leadership in suburban Polk and Dallas counties, where officials fast-track projects and invest in roads, water, and utilities to facilitate construction.
"That infrastructure is often in place before builders break ground, clearing the path for fast, seamless development," notes the analyst.
Echoing Sulgrove, Eric Quiner, agent with Realty ONE Group Impact, argues that Des Moines' ascendance is the result of decades of practical governance, combined with a strong emphasis on allowing the private sector to thrive.
"There's a culture here that values getting things done," Quiner tells Realtor.com. "Des Moines isn't trying to be something it isn't. It's a practical, business-friendly community that has grown steadily without losing its quality of life. That combination—land, infrastructure, reasonable regulation, a healthy private sector, and a community that continues to invest in itself—has allowed our housing market to grow in a way that many larger cities simply haven't been able to replicate."
According to Quiner, the Des Moines housing market succeeds by leveraging its strengths to draw newcomers.
"Iowa doesn't have mountains or an ocean, and our winters can be pretty brutal," he points out. "So we've had to create the things that make people want to live here. We have outstanding parks and recreation, clean and well-maintained communities, a surprisingly strong music and dining scene, good schools, and neighborhoods where people can still afford to put down roots."
Des Moines' weak spot
This newly built three-bedroom home in Des Moines is listed for $445,990. (Realtor.com) The metro's sole vulnerability is its 23.4% new-construction premium, placing it in the bottom half of metros for the price gap between new builds and existing homes.
To make newly built homes more accessible to lower- and middle-income buyers, Sulgrove says developers are now pivoting toward more cost-effective "missing middle" housing.
"We’re seeing a big push into townhomes, duplexes, and smaller-lot, single-family designs," he says. "Shrinking the footprint allows builders to deliver new construction in that $200,000 to $300,000 sweet spot, keeping entry-level buyers from being priced out."
Following Des Moines, Raleigh clinched the No. 2 spot and an A+ grade thanks to its impressive 2.61 permit-to-population ratio and a negative new-construction premium.
Berner points out that while half of the top 10 metros, including Des Moines, are located in states that earned an A on the State Report Cards, Raleigh, along with Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, Palm Bay, and Columbia, outperformed their states.
For example, unlike Raleigh, North Carolina earned a B, as did Florida, while Oklahoma and Ohio each got a C+.
The regional divergence
Overall, the metros follow the same regional patterns as the states, with Southern and Midwestern markets dominating while their Northeastern and Western counterparts are lagging far behind.
The South and Midwest benefit from ample space and lower land costs, robust job markets, accessible home prices, and lenient zoning and permitting policies, creating the conditions allowing markets like Des Moines and Columbia to flourish.
On the other hand, metros in regions where buildable land is scarce and expensive, and housing policies are less flexible, found themselves at the bottom of the heap, with Los Angeles, Providence, RI, New York City, Honolulu, and Boston receiving the ranking's worst total scores and F grades across the board.
"One common thread among the 'A' metros is that they tend to be blue cities in red states, which is an important distinction in that builders often do not have to deal with the same kind of state-level environmental reviews that they do in many of the 'F' metros, and the 'A' metros have the latitude to enact pro-housing policy instead," says Berner.