An annual Rice University report found that the number of home-owning households in Houston and Harris County dropped between 2023 and 2024, and by an unprecedented margin among Black families, even as housing prices were relatively stable.

The number of Black households that owned a home fell about 16% year-over-year in the city of Houston, the largest decline since researchers began tracking the measure more than 15 years ago, according to the Kinder Institute for Urban Research report released Tuesday. Overall, the number of homeowner households dipped by about 4% in Houston and 2% across Harris County, the largest county-wide decline since 2010, researchers found.

The hit to home-ownership came even as the median home sale price in Harris County dropped $5,000 over the same period and were flat in the city of Houston, researchers found. The trend is a seeming disconnect that indicates affordability challenges that go beyond home prices.

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“Rent and home costs may not be skyrocketing, but the signs of stress for homeowners and renters become evident when you look at other indicators like insurance costs, cost burden rate, and evictions,” Rice research scientist Steve Sherman said during a webinar about the annual report on Tuesday.

Though median home sales prices were stable, other costs associated with home-ownership rose: median annual home insurance premiums outpaced growth in home values, rising 17% in Harris County and 13% in Houston between 2023 and 2024. Some homeowners could also be facing higher premiums, plus the added cost of flood insurance, after being classified as lying within flood plains in recently-updated federal flood maps.

Asians were the only racial group to see an increase in home-owning households in both Houston and Harris County, the report found. The number of White, Hispanic and Black home-owning households decreased in both areas, which could indicate homeowners becoming renters, moving out of the area or passing away, the report said.

The unprecedented decrease in Black home-ownership – which was greater than during the aftermath of the Great Recession in 2008 – could have dire implications for building Black generational wealth, the report said.

The drop in Black home-ownership could indicate that Black residents with low or fixed incomes are being priced out of quickly gentrifying areas, said Courtney Johnson Rose, CEO of real estate firm George E. Johnson Properties, during a panel discussion about the report Tuesday.

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Renters – who make up about 59% of Houston households and 46% of Harris County households – are also struggling to afford housing, researchers found. More than half of the area’s renter households – about 51% county-wide and 53% in Houston – spend more than 30% of their income on rent, leaving less of their budget for other essentials like healthcare or groceries, according to the report. That share was halved for homeowners, with about one-quarter of the city and county’s home-owning households spending more than 30% on housing costs.

Eviction filing rates are also higher than before the pandemic, with one eviction filing per ten Harris County households in 2024, and in some neighborhoods, more than one filing per five households, the report found. That number may include serial filings against single households.

The high rate of cost-burdened renters aligns with findings from forthcoming survey data from the Kinder Institute, which found that 56% of area respondents were at least “a little” worried about being priced out of their housing, and 58% were at least “a little” worried about high housing costs, Sherman said.

The affordability challenges may stem in part from stagnating incomes. Median incomes for Houston and Harris County grew slightly year-over-year but after accounting for inflation, essentially flat-lined, researchers found.

Rental households fared worse than home-owning households: their median income declined from 2023 to 2024 even before adjusting for price increases. After factoring in inflation, rental households’ median income fell about 7% in Houston and 3% in Harris County, the report found.

Researchers urged policymakers to prioritize and expand strategies to expand home-ownership access and housing affordability.

“Moving forward, if retaining and growing Houston and Harris County’s population is a priority,” the report said, “housing builders, policymakers, and communities across all sectors should focus on where and at what price housing is being built or preserved, particularly within historically Black communities.”

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This article originally published at Houston saw unprecedented decline in Black homeownership in 2024, Rice report finds.