MAP: Dallas has the most vacant development parcels in the U.S.

The real estate boom in Dallas started at the end of the Great Recession, and developers have been filling in urban areas like the blazes ever since.

Dallas-Fort Worth has led the nation in commercial property deals three years running. It completely dominated in warehouse and logistics development in 2022. Multi-billion-dollar planned communities abound.

And yet, there are more than 90,000 acres of vacant land in Dallas proper that could be developed into multifamily housing, more than any other city in the United States, according to Yardi Systems’ Commercial Cafe. 

Coming in second, with almost 75,000 vacant acres, is its neighbor Fort Worth. Houston, San Antonio and Austin also ranked in the top 10.

Even in some of Dallas’ most-expensive zip codes, there is land up for grabs. In the Preston Hollow area, where the median home sale price was $1.5 million in June, according to Redfin, there are 30 vacant parcels.

In historically underinvested Southern Dallas, there are zip codes with hundreds of vacant lots, ripe for thousands of housing units. 

The city of Dallas sprawls out across 386 square miles. Compare that to Atlanta, where the city limits are contained within 136 square miles. Unlike Atlanta, Dallas annexed all of its little suburbs back in the early 1900s, and it owns land in five counties.

Now suburbs like Frisco, former agricultural land once considered far-flung and podunk, are where the real action is. While commercial infill and redevelopment is hot in inner-city neighborhoods like Uptown, there are still neighborhoods 10 minutes from downtown that can’t land a major grocery store.

While the DFW area gained 170,000 new residents last year, more than any other major metro in the United States, the population in the city of Dallas has actually been declining. It dropped a little over 3 percent in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

This interactive map shows where the vacant land in Dallas is, by zip code.

For its survey, Yardi looked at vacant lots larger than half an acre that it considers suitable for construction. It then cut out cemeteries, parks and other parcels that couldn’t be developed.

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