{"id":137495,"date":"2026-01-25T13:28:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T13:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/137495\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T13:28:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T13:28:29","slug":"affordable-housing-hard-to-find-in-houston-dallas-phoenix-atlanta-seattle-washington-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/137495\/","title":{"rendered":"Affordable housing hard to find in Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Atlanta, Seattle, Washington DC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coastal and Sun Belt cities are ramping up\u00a0construction on housing<\/a>\u2014but not the kind of housing that most people can afford, with supply dominated by larger homes and tiny apartments priced for high-income earners<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to a\u00a0new study<\/a>\u00a0from the\u00a0Georgetown University Center on Poverty and Inequality<\/a>, which studied housing data for\u00a0Houston<\/a>,\u00a0Dallas<\/a>,\u00a0Phoenix<\/a>,\u00a0Atlanta<\/a>,\u00a0Seattle<\/a>, and Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

Those six metros beat national averages for homebuilding, Georgetown found, based on the share of new housing units as a share of the overall housing inventory.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, about 11.35% of the housing stock came online from 2010 to 2023. <\/p>\n

In the six metros, that number ranges from 12.7% to 22.4%.<\/p>\n

Those numbers are a bright spot on a home construction market<\/a> that\u00a0slowed down in 2025<\/a>. And while\u00a0some states passed new laws<\/a>\u00a0to expedite home construction from the zoning side, challenges remain.<\/p>\n

All of the cities but DC also house an\u00a0outsized share of<\/a>\u00a0institutional investors. The federal government\u00a0unveiled new limitations<\/a>\u00a0on them to tamp down on housing costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"WorkerCoastal and Sun Belt cities are ramping up\u00a0construction on housing\u2014but not the kind of housing that most people can afford. New Africa \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

New owner-occupied units are larger<\/p>\n

In each city, Georgetown found a narrow range of housing dominating the construction market. New owner-occupied units are larger, unlike older homes on the market.<\/p>\n

For instance, 33% of homes built in the 1980s contain four or more bedrooms. For housing stock since 2010, almost 59% had that many.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust focusing on supply alone won\u2019t reach those who are struggling most,\u201d\u00a0Lelaine Bigelow, executive director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, tells Realtor.com\u00ae.<\/p>\n

\"Top-downA new study\u00a0from the\u00a0Georgetown University Center on Poverty and Inequality analyzed housing data for six metros, including Dallas, Texas. trongnguyen \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

\u201cThe private sector isn\u2019t meeting the needs for lower-income households, and probably not the middle class, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coupled with a rental market that is concentrated in large, multifamily buildings with small units, these trends limit the availability of smaller and lower-cost homes, according to the study.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis reduction in smaller \u2018starter\u2019 homes and concentration of large, higher-cost homes among newer housing may limit homeownership opportunities for moderate- and lower-income households,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

Moderate-, middle-, and high-income renters<\/a>, meanwhile, occupy an overwhelming 55% of the newest housing stock in the six metros, with the other 45% low or extremely low income<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Compare that to the stock built before 1971, where 37% of occupants are high income, and the rest low or very low.<\/p>\n

Just under 4% of newly built owner-occupied units were duplexes, triplexes, and other denser housing types.<\/p>\n

Bigelow said market forces alone won\u2019t solve the housing crisis. Public investment in housing and infrastructure is needed, too.<\/p>\n

A combination of zoning reform, financial tools, and inclusionary practices to expand housing stock, especially \u201cmissing middle\u201d housing more attainable for middle- and low-income buyers, is suggested.<\/p>\n

Data shows the data may be shifting<\/p>\n

Still, other data show the market might be shifting.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0Realtor.com analysis<\/a>\u00a0of nationwide building permit data showed that in 2022, the median new build was 2,128 square feet in size. In 2024, that number fell to 1,965 square feet.<\/p>\n

Realtor.com senior economist\u00a0Joel Berner\u00a0said not to underestimate the \u201cfiltering effect,\u201d where people from smaller homes move to larger ones.<\/p>\n

The data shows people renting for longer, and the needs for the homes they eventually do buy change as a result.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe that starter homes are going by the wayside, but more of them are being used as single-family rentals, which gives credence to the idea that families may rent either an apartment or single-family home until they have kids and need a larger home,\u201d Berner said.<\/p>\n

Realtor.com\u2019s\u00a0state-by-state housing affordability report card<\/a>\u00a0gives\u00a0Texas<\/a>\u00a0an A-,\u00a0Georgia<\/a>\u00a0a B,\u00a0Arizona<\/a>\u00a0a C, and\u00a0Washington<\/a>\u00a0a C-.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coastal and Sun Belt cities are ramping up\u00a0construction on housing\u2014but not the kind of housing that most people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6550,11718,102,104,103,16616,3222,56,8947,111,58286,16601,27,2001,17652,58287,58288],"class_list":["post-137495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-arizona","tag-atlanta","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-georgia","tag-housing","tag-houston","tag-phoenix","tag-real-estate","tag-rich","tag-seattle","tag-texas","tag-washington","tag-washington-dc","tag-wealth","tag-wealthy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}