State of Housing Report finds growing affordability strains for Houston-area residents

This year's report focused on the rental and home ownership trends, demographic shifts and the growing burden of insurance costs.

Per research conducted by the Kinder Institute:

• Median homeowner insurance costs in Harris County rose 17%.
• About 60% of Houston households are renters.
• As of 2017, Houston has more multifamily housing units, which are disproportionately renter-occupied, than single-family homes, of which only about 75% are owner-occupied.

In addition to rising insurance costs, Sherman said updated FEMA flood maps show that 28% of housing units countywide are now located within a FEMA-designated floodplain. Homeowners within the flood zones are required to purchase flood insurance.

Areas where the most single-family homes were added to the floodplain maps are concentrated in 10 neighborhoods, largely located in northwest Harris County around Cypress and Copperfield. These areas also account for 40% of all new single-family homes added to the floodplain, Sherman said.

What the experts say

Southeast Texas Regional Director for Texas Housers Julia Orgunia said while home rental costs are increasing at a faster rate than inflation, over half of Harris County renters are cost-burdened, meaning renters are spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs.

With rent prices rising since 2010, Orgunia said the highest rent prices seen were from 2021-2022.

Per the Rice University Kinder Institute findings, there was a decrease in homeownership, with 19,000 occupied units lost since 2010, and a drop in single-family production, with less than 5,000 owner-occupied units.

“I think that that's really surprising, and kind of goes against the narrative that many of us have in our head of, we are not always a boom town, but we are always growing, and we are always producing, and you drive around and you see new homes being built ... you see all of these new homes going up, but to realize that it is at a historically low level was surprising,” Tory Gunsolley, chief program officer for Harris County Housing and Community Development, said.

A few obstacles that Courtney Johnson Rose, CEO of George E. Johnson Properties, said could be an issue in home inventory include city permitting issues, flood zones, rising cost of land, labor shortages and lender policies.

Gunsolley said a few ways in which Harris County is addressing housing affordability challenges include:

• Eviction diversion programs
• Production programs
• County flood bond programs

Orgunia said in order to maintain home affordability, homebuilding and housing production should continue at the rate it was before the pandemic, with 30,000-35,000 units built annually.

To help address housing affordability challenges, Orgunia said communities need more local funding, incentives for multifamily housing development and programs that help residents become homeowners, in addition to federal support.