DALLAS — Texans with a hankerin’ for backyard barbecues, cornhole competitions, a place to let the dogs out or more lawn to mow are in luck: Home lots in the Lone Star State’s largest cities are some of the biggest the nation.
In North Texas, Dallas ranked fifth and Fort Worth ranked 10th nationally in median lot size when buyers purchase a single-family home, according to a new report by StorageCafé.
Texas cities grabbed five of the top 10 spots in the ranking of 20 U.S. cities. It was the only state with more than one city in the top 10.
Austin ranked No. 3 out of 20, with a median lot size of 8,629 square feet. Dallas ranked No. 5, with a median of 8,194 square feet. San Antonio was No. 7 , with 7,475 square feet; Houston ranked No. 9, with 7,131 square feet; Fort Worth was No. 10, with a median lot size of 7,096 square feet.
Dallas’ median lot size of 8,194 square feet and median house size of 1,581 square feet equals a house-in-lot ratio of 21.6 percent. The median lot size from one decade to the next varied less in Dallas than in other cities. Homes sizes, however, have been steadily growing since 1920, by more than 76%.
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In Fort Worth, lots decreased by about 10% over the past 100 years, while the median home increased in size by over 70%, the report said. In Fort Worth, homes usually take up about 24 percent of the lot on which they sit.
Indianapolis boasts the largest median lot size overall. The median size in the Indiana state capital is 9,191 square feet. Jacksonville, Florida, ranked No. 2, with a median size of 9,104 square feet. Here are the full rankings.
In other national stats, Philadelphia has the smallest lot sizes, with a median of 1,089 square feet.
San Diego increased its median lot size by almost 50% from the 1920s through the present. And Seattle, Charlotte and Denver saw the biggest lot size decreases over the past 100 years.
Lot usage increased in all 20 biggest cities in the U.S., largely due to increasing home sizes.
New single-family homes are now built larger, whereas lot sizes are getting smaller, according to StorageCafé. The median home size is now over 2,260 square feet, up from 2,170 square feet in 2010. Meanwhile, the median lot size of a new home decreased by almost 18%, from 10,500 square feet in 2010 to 8,700 square feet in 2020, according to U.S. Census data.
The demand for housing in many markets is so much higher than the current supply that developers of new residential properties have to make the most of available land, said Isaac Hiatt of Yardi Matrix, StorageCafe’s sister division and a research firm focusing on multifamily, student housing, office, industrial and self-storage properties.
“This has led to an increase in what many would call single-family condensed housing,” Hiatt said.