Bob Templeton with Zonda Education told the Northwest ISD board of trustees during their regular meeting Feb. 25 that “the developers are not slowing down” when it comes to residential growth in the district.

The gist

During his quarterly demographics presentation to the board, Templeton said the district had reclaimed the top spot from Prosper ISD in the fourth quarter of 2024 in terms of annual closings.

“Prosper snuck up there for one quarter, but now Northwest ISD is back in the number one spot with over 3,000 closings [for the year],” Templeton said.

According to Zonda Education documents, NISD's 2024 closings can be broken down into the following quarters:
  • Quarter 1 - 710
  • Quarter 2 - 1,112
  • Quarter 3 - 612
  • Quarter 4 - 587
Zooming in


Templeton also provided a district housing overview separated out by elementary school attendance zones.

“You have eight elementary zones building more than 100 homes and three that I would categorize by very strong growth,” Templeton said.

Those three zones include:
  • Carter Elementary with 644 annual housing starts
  • Daniel Elementary with 400 annual housing starts
  • Justin Elementary with 393 annual housing starts
Templeton then widened his scope to include the district as a whole. According to Zonda Education documents, the new subdivisions in the area include:
  • 69 subdivisions are currently under construction
  • 32 subdivisions are in various planning stages
  • Groundwork is underway on nearly 6,300 lots in 18 subdivisions
A closer look

Templeton said one trend he is seeing in the district is a large percentage of activity in the build-to-rent segment. Currently, there are 1,375 rental units under construction in NISD, 632 of which are single-family homes.


“This product is growing [and] it’s happening all over,” Templeton said.

He attributed the growing popularity of build-to-rent single family homes to several factors, including:
  • No long-term mortgage commitment
  • Upfront costs not as expensive as a buying a house
Templeton said nearly 6,300 more rental units are in various stages of planning in the district, mostly along the major transportation arteries in the district, including US 287 and SH 114.

Key takeaways

Templeton's enrollment forecast, which includes more than 38,700 students in 2029-30 and approximately 46,300 by the 2034-35 school year, remains consistent with his previous quarterly presentations to the board. However, the first quarter projections of 2025 will be a key quarter for new home starts to determine if the annual rate will impact those enrollment projections, according to Zonda Education documents.