What Are the Fastest Growing Cities in Texas for Real Estate?

Texas added 391,243 new residents from July 2024 to July 2025 — the fourth-largest population gain of any state in the country. Where those people are going determines where real estate demand is strongest. Here is what the data shows.

The Big Picture: Texas Population Growth in 2026

Texas ranked fourth in the nation for population growth from July 2024 to July 2025, per U.S. Census Bureau data, reaching a total state population of approximately 31.7 million residents. That growth reflects both domestic migration — primarily from California, Illinois, New York, and Michigan per Allied Van Lines data cited by RealWealth — and international immigration, though the pace of international migration slowed in 2025. Texas added 132,500 jobs in 2025, outpacing the national average, led by construction, healthcare, data centers, AI-related industries, and transportation, per the Dallas Fed's 2026 employment forecast.

Fastest Growing Communities and Metros

Growth in Texas is heavily concentrated in specific corridors. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro posted 19,310 closed home sales in Q1 2026, the highest of any Texas market per the Texas Real Estate Research Center, reflecting both population and economic density. The Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro recorded 18,371 closed sales in Q1 2026. But the fastest percentage growth is occurring in smaller communities outside the major metros. Boerne's population grew 39.4% from the 2020 Census to approximately 25,209 in 2026, per World Population Review, reflecting an annual growth rate of approximately 4.83% — one of the strongest sustained growth rates of any community in the Texas Hill Country. New Braunfels in Comal County has similarly posted exceptional growth rates year over year for the past decade, driven by Guadalupe River access, Canyon Lake proximity, and I-35 connectivity to both San Antonio and Austin.

The Austin Correction and What It Means

Austin was the poster child of Texas population growth during 2020 to 2022 — and has since experienced significant housing market correction as overbuilding caught up with migration demand. Zillow's average Austin home value as of early 2026 was approximately $494,727, down about 3.6% year over year. For investors and buyers who were priced out at the peak, that correction represents a genuine re-entry opportunity in a city with strong long-term tech employment fundamentals. But the lesson of Austin's correction is relevant to every fast-growing Texas market: population growth alone does not prevent price correction when supply outpaces demand.

Why Hill Country Communities Are Structurally Different

Communities like Boerne and New Braunfels maintain structural protection against the kind of overbuilding that afflicted Austin because the Hill Country terrain — limestone ridges, river corridors, and constrained flat land — limits the scale of large-scale suburban development. That land constraint, combined with top-rated school districts and strong community identity, creates a floor under property values that does not exist in markets where buildable land is abundant. For buyers and investors evaluating Texas markets, the combination of population growth and constrained supply is the most defensible long-term value position in any market.

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