Dallas Permit Report: October 2026, Urban Infill

By Ben C • Nov 5th, 2026
Market Monitor
Dallas
Permitting

Cedar Market Monitor · Urban Infill

The Cedar Market Monitor is a monthly newsletter for the people building Dallas's housing. We use public permit data to show where the market is heading: where new homes are going, how long approvals take, and who's building. This issue covers October 2026, with data through 30 October 2026.

Permit snapshot

Permits issued155vs 186 in Oct 2025 · 168 homes
Last 3 months532permits Aug–Oct 2026; a year earlier is in the City's permit gap
Permit Issue time18 daysmedian SF, last 12 months
In the pipeline10,370permitted since Jan 2025, not yet finished

What got permitted

Detached houses carried 144 of October’s 168 infill homes.

Detached house144Duplex203–4 unit townhomes4

2,255 infill homes were permitted in the last twelve months, and the missing middle (duplexes and 3–4 unit townhomes) was 15% of them. Homes, not permits. The City's permit record is missing or incomplete for parts of November 2024 to September 2025, when it moved permitting to its DallasNow system, so comparisons with those months are left out.

Pipeline

10,370 homes permitted since January 2025 haven’t been finished yet.

5+ unit buildings7,359Single homes2,5352–4 unit buildings476

That’s the supply still coming: 96% of the 10,834 homes permitted in that time. 1,940 of them are already under construction. 71% are in apartment buildings (5+ homes), and five ZIPs hold 35% of them, led by 75231 (1,051) and 75217 (782). Most permits get built: 91% of homes permitted 2016–22 were finished.

The City’s permit record is missing or thin for May, June, August and September 2025, across its move to DallasNow, so homes permitted then are under-counted and the pipeline is a floor.

Teardowns

Five ZIP codes had 47% of Dallas’s 1,098 home teardowns in the last twelve months.

ZIPNov 2025 – Oct 2026
1. 75229133
2. 75214120
3. 7522099
4. 7520987
5. 7521877

Private whole-house demolitions inside the City of Dallas, one per lot per year: 41 ZIPs in all. No comparison with the year before: the City’s record has no demolitions for August and September 2025.

Permit issue time

A single-family permit takes a median 18 days to issue.

Building typePermitsMedian daysExcl. slowest 10%
Single-family1,9121815
2–4 units1582521
Multifamily & mixed use66214196

Median days from application to issue, permits issued Nov 2025 – Oct 2026. The last column removes the slowest 10% to account for stalled applications.

Where

Five ZIP codes carried 46% of October’s infill homes.

75201: 0 homes in October 202675203: 4 homes in October 202675204: 2 homes in October 202675205: 0 homes in October 202675206: 7 homes in October 202675207: 0 homes in October 202675208: 4 homes in October 202675209: 17 homes in October 202675210: 3 homes in October 202675211: 0 homes in October 202675212: 4 homes in October 202675214: 9 homes in October 202675215: 6 homes in October 202675216: 5 homes in October 202675217: 16 homes in October 202675218: 9 homes in October 202675219: 0 homes in October 202675220: 13 homes in October 202675223: 5 homes in October 202675224: 1 home in October 202675225: 2 homes in October 202675226: 0 homes in October 202675227: 6 homes in October 202675228: 2 homes in October 202675229: 12 homes in October 202675230: 19 homes in October 202675231: 0 homes in October 202675232: 0 homes in October 202675233: 0 homes in October 202675234: 0 homes in October 202675235: 6 homes in October 202675236: 0 homes in October 202675237: 0 homes in October 202675238: 6 homes in October 202675240: 0 homes in October 202675241: 5 homes in October 202675243: 0 homes in October 202675244: 1 home in October 202675246: 0 homes in October 202675248: 1 home in October 202675249: 0 homes in October 202675252: 1 home in October 202675253: 1 home in October 202675254: 1 home in October 202675287: 0 homes in October 202675115: 0 homes in October 202675180: 0 homes in October 202612345
None1–45–910+
ZIPHomesShare
1. 752301911%
2. 752091710%
3. 752171610%
4. 75220138%
5. 75229127%

The fastest-rising ZIP is left out: the same months of 2025 fall in the City’s permit gap. Only permits inside the City of Dallas are counted, so ZIPs that straddle the city line show the city’s part only. ZIPs come from each permit’s address, placed on its parcel.

Who’s building

DR HORTON led with 93 homes in the last six months.

BuilderHomesPermits
DR HORTON9393
LENNAR HOMES6363
HOMEBOUND TECHNOLOGIES, INC.2929
LGI HOMES2121
NATIONAL HOME CORP2020

Infill homes permitted May – October 2026, out of 1,212. The permit holder is usually the general contractor rather than the developer, and one firm can appear under several names. 16 homes on 10 permits (1%) name no holder and are not ranked.

Method. New residential permits issued inside the City of Dallas, from the City's own permit records, filtered to infill forms: detached houses, duplexes and 3–4 unit townhomes. Apartments (five or more homes) are left out. Remodels and additions are excluded, and demolitions are counted on their own, never netted against new homes. Homes, not permits, unless stated.

3–4 unit townhomes are multifamily permits of three or four homes. In Dallas, where the appraisal roll already shows the finished building, nearly all are rows of three-story townhomes. A townhouse permitted on its own as single-family is counted as a detached house.

Texas is a non-disclosure state, so no sale prices exist in any public permit or appraisal record. Nothing here speaks to what new housing sold for.

Pipeline: homes on live permits issued since 1 January 2025 not yet finished: not yet recorded as a completed building on the Dallas Central Appraisal District and Collin CAD rolls, which record them with a lag, so some may already be done; permits outside the rolls’ coverage and dead permits are left out. Teardowns: private whole-building demolitions of homes inside the City of Dallas, one per lot per year, from the City’s monthly demolition reports (January 2024 on).

Data through 30 October 2026. Built by Cedar.


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