The question I keep getting asked, in nearly every conversation with builders, developers, and capital allocators, is some version of "where is new construction actually working right now?" The honest answer is that it depends entirely on where you draw the box. National averages flatten the gaps between markets that are clearing and markets that are not, and in 2026 those gaps are wider than they have been in a long time.
So I asked our data team to pull a parcel-level snapshot from across the country and look at five things: how fast new homes are closing, where they're closing the fastest, what product is getting built, and where the finished lot pipeline sits today. The sample covers 85,516 sold parcels across 4,989 actively-building subdivisions, all drawn from 2026 closed sales inside subdivisions our DevMap engine flagged as actively building.
What came back is a more uneven picture than the national headlines suggest. Here's the data, and what I'm taking from it.
1. Regional absorption in 2026: the Southeast pulls ahead
The Southeast records the fastest average list-to-close timeline at 110 days, roughly five weeks ahead of the South at 131.6 days and a full month and a half faster than the PNW/Northwest at 159.8 days.
The 2026-closed-sales filter is intentional. It isolates current demand conditions from legacy inventory that may have lingered on the market for reasons unrelated to today's absorption pace. We're measuring what's clearing right now, not what's still sitting from a softer cycle.
What stands out to me is that the Southeast's lead is powered by both volume and velocity. Its 37,517 sold parcels are nearly double the South's total, which tells me the speed isn't a thin-dataset artifact. It's a real demand signal across a broad base of subdivisions.
2. State detail in 2026: California and Florida lead
California emerges as the fastest-absorbing state at 86.7 days, followed closely by Florida at 96.5 days. Both markets are clearing new inventory in under 100 days on average. North Carolina sits at 111.6 days. Texas comes in at 134.4 and South Carolina at 141.1.
California is the one I want to flag. Given the regulatory and entitlement complexity in the state, what's making it to market is being absorbed almost immediately. That's not a story about easy supply. It's a story about pent-up demand meeting constrained delivery. Florida's combination of speed and volume (15,565 parcels) makes it arguably the most compelling state-level story for production builders deciding where to put capital next.
3. Metro standouts in 2026: the fastest CBSAs in the country
The 50-subdivision floor is deliberate. It keeps small-sample noise out of the ranking, since a CBSA with three subdivisions and one fast close can look like a leader without being one.
Sacramento leads the country at 37.7 days, just over five weeks from list to close. Three of the top five slots belong to California CBSAs.
The entry I find most interesting is Birmingham, Alabama at 42.6 days. Birmingham outpaces San Francisco and Chicago despite being a fraction of their size, which says to me that pockets of intense local demand exist well outside the usual coastal and Sun Belt headlines. If you're a regional builder looking for asymmetric opportunity, that data point is worth a closer look.
Chicago–Naperville–Elgin is the other surprise, for a different reason. 16,735 sold listings across 305 subdivisions at 43.6 days suggests a deep, liquid market that gets underweighted in national homebuilding conversations. Sometimes scale and speed coexist, and the Chicago metro is one of those cases right now.
4. Product mix is shifting: attached gains ground
We also looked at the share of actively-building subdivisions that include attached product (townhomes, duplexes, similar configurations) in three Sun Belt state groups. Eligibility for this analysis is tighter than for the regional and state-level absorption tables: subdivisions must contain at least two parcels with a year-built of 2025 or later, and no more than two parcels built before 2020. That filter ensures we're measuring genuinely current activity, not legacy communities still showing recent transactions.
North Carolina and South Carolina lead with 25.2% of active subdivisions including attached product. One in four new communities. Florida follows at 20.1%. Texas lags meaningfully at 12.7%.
The gradient is likely three things working together: land cost escalation in the Carolinas' core metros (Charlotte, Raleigh, Charleston) pushing density, municipal zoning receptivity to attached formats, and a generational buyer shift toward lower-maintenance product in high-growth markets.
The implication is direct. The single-family detached monopoly is eroding faster in some markets than others. Builders in the Carolinas who aren't offering an attached SKU may be leaving meaningful share on the table.
5. Where the lots are: finished-lot inventory concentration
Finally, we quantified the finished-lot pipeline ready for new construction across six target states. A qualifying finished lot is defined as a parcel under 15,000 square feet, at least 99% open space, and whose earliest recorded transaction date falls on or after January 1, 2020. That last filter is the key one. It captures parcels that entered the record as new parcel IDs since 2020 (typically via subdivision plat) and excludes older lots that merely changed hands recently.
The concentration is staggering. Florida accounts for 144,470 finished lots, which is 53.3% of the six-state total. That dominance reflects the ongoing cadence of master-planned community lot creation across the state, from the I-4 corridor to Southwest Florida.
Texas and California each contribute roughly 41,000 lots. Georgia adds another 25,000-plus. North Carolina and South Carolina, despite their strong absorption and product mix stories, show comparatively thinner finished-lot pipelines, which may signal future supply constraints if entitlement and platting activity does not accelerate.
For land acquisition teams and capital allocators, Florida's lot depth offers optionality and scale. The flip side is that when supply is this deep, community positioning, product differentiation, and absorption velocity become the critical determinants of deal-level returns.
Underneath these numbers is a market dynamic worth naming. The COVID-era development cycle pulled an unprecedented volume of finished-lot supply into the market in a compressed window. Years of inventory came online at once. As projects have delivered into a slowing absorption environment, finished lots are now sitting on developer and builder balance sheets in quantities we haven't seen in a generation.
Texas is where this is most visible today, but the pattern is gaining traction across the country. For well-capitalized builders, that creates real opportunity. Finished-lot acquisitions at attractive pricing are likely to be an active area of deal flow in 2026 and beyond.
What stands out to me
Three things stand out to me as I look at this picture together.
First, the national average is a misleading number in 2026. The gap between Sacramento at 38 days and the PNW regional average at 160 days isn't a rounding error. It's a four-fold difference in deal velocity, and it has serious implications for hold periods, financing structures, and product strategy. Anyone walking into 2026 with a single-velocity assumption is leaving real money on the table.
Second, the most interesting opportunities are not always in the markets at the top of the press cycle. Birmingham is faster than San Francisco. Chicago is a top-five velocity market. The data rewards builders willing to look past headline geography.
Third, finished-lot inventory is presenting opportunities for builders that the market didn't offer in recent years. The flurry of development activity during COVID brought an unprecedented amount of lot supply online, pulling years of inventory into the market ahead of historical pace. As projects have delivered into a slowing absorption environment, finished lots are now sitting on developer and builder balance sheets. For well-capitalized builders, finished-lot acquisitions at attractive pricing will be an active area of deal flow in 2026 and beyond.
The builders, brokers, and capital allocators who win this cycle will be the ones making site selection decisions informed by parcel-level data, not headline sentiment. That's the case I keep making to our customers and to the industry. The data team is making it here today.
Methodology
All data in this analysis is sourced from Prophetic's parcel-level intelligence platform, which integrates ATTOM parcel records, county recorder filings, lot dimension data, and Prophetic's proprietary DevMap subdivision identification engine.
Time-on-market (list-to-close) figures are calculated using 2026 closed sales only, within subdivisions identified by DevMap as actively building. The metric represents the average number of calendar days between a parcel's listing date and its recorded close date. The regional and state-level panels cover 4,989 subdivisions and 85,516 sold parcels.
CBSA rankings are filtered to markets with a minimum of 50 new subdivision projects recently completed or with active sales, ensuring statistical depth before comparing velocities.
Attached-product classification uses ATTOM lot dimension data to identify attached configurations within each subdivision. Lot-dimension coverage ranges from 72.1% to 73.7% across the three state groups analyzed; parcels without dimension records are excluded from the product-type classification. DevMap eligibility requires at least 2 parcels at year_built 2025 or later and no more than 2 parcels at year_built before 2020.
Finished-lot inventory is defined at the parcel level (not DevMap-dependent) using three criteria: lot area below 15,000 square feet; open space above 99.0%; and earliest recorder date on or after January 1, 2020. Source tables include attom_parcels, attom_parcels_dimensions, attom_recorder, and search_parcel_facts.
