The 2022 State of Housing in Harris County and Houston analyzed foreclosures countywide from 2005 to 2020. But what happens to a neighborhood after a foreclosure crisis?
The past two years have been a heady time for real estate, and as we emerge from the pandemic’s fog of uncertainty, the 2022 State of Housing report details an increasingly stressed situation in Harris County and Houston. Median prices now exceed $300,000 and are approaching $350,000, slipping out of reach for residents earning the median household income. Meanwhile, much of the already limited affordable rental housing stock is becoming increasingly vulnerable.
If you built a political platform based on what most Houstonians would agree with, what would it look like? We have one version of a “Houston agenda”, thanks to the 2022 Kinder Houston Area Survey. While divisions persist, big shares of Houstonians across party lines agree on several big issues.
Houstonians are looking slightly less optimistic than they normally do, and the economy is their main concern—more than crime, pandemics, traffic, flooding, and other recent plagues. In fact, optimism is at its lowest level in the history of the Kinder Houston Area Survey, driven largely by the rising cost of living. This cloudy outlook also comes with a dose of clarity about the lingering effects of racism and even stronger agreement on the need to support public education.
Increasingly, Houston-area students learning English in public school are taking longer to become proficient, which is holding them back from mastering other subjects and moving forward in their educational journey. In a new report, we identified a few factors that might be contributing to this trend—as well as factors that could lead to better outcomes.
What do trees, bike lanes, and billions in federal disaster aid have in common? They are some of the building blocks of Houston’s future—one that is safer, more equitable and better positioned to withstand future disasters. They’re also among the inventory of measures included in the Kinder Institute’s new Resilience and Recovery Tracker.
A recent Kinder Institute report discussed strategies for preserving affordable housing, particularly Harris County’s vast supply of so-called “naturally affordable” units. But knowing which properties should be preserved is a challenge, and the resources committed to preservation tend to be very limited.
This week marks the first anniversary of an especially grim event in Texas’ history. Winter Storm Uri touched nearly every corner of the state with power outages that affected millions of people and led to at least 246 lives lost. Unofficial counts put the death toll at three times that number.
Do property taxpayers inside the City of Houston subsidize Harris County services? It’s a question that comes up a lot, given the fact that city residents—like their counterparts in the county—pay separate property taxes to the county, but the county provides many services only to the unincorporated areas.
The shift to 100% online instruction in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020 meant school districts around the country needed to quickly develop plans for how to implement distance learning and serve student needs. The Houston Education Research Consortium analyzed the plans of 45 school districts from 15 states for insights into the collective response to the pandemic.
As housing prices rise, housing affordability is a growing concern for many families, especially for renters. The affordability gap varies by neighborhood, with most inner-city areas far beyond the reach of the median-income renter.
Four predominantly Black neighborhoods in Houston have been experiencing gentrification in recent years. Data captured by U.S. Census surveys shows these communities are becoming proportionally more Hispanic and more educated, housing prices are accelerating, and residents there are more likely to rent and face cost burdens than others in Harris County.
A lot of the rent houses owned by real estate investment trusts — or REITs — are located in unincorporated parts of Harris County and municipal utility districts (MUDs) that have been hit hardest by foreclosures and flooding. Many of them are connected to local and national homebuilders.
The Kinder Institute’s second annual “State of Housing” report comes as Houston—and much of the country—remains in the midst of a residential real estate bonanza. A yearlong buying spree, fueled by a combination of factors, is driving the country to historically low inventory levels and propelling prices ever higher.
Houston, a quintessentially free-enterprise, anti-government city, is increasingly recognizing the critical role of government in strengthening the safety net, expanding opportunity and building resiliency, according to the Kinder Houston Area Surveys.
Body
Body
Kinder Institute Newsletter
Keep up with the latest research, news and events.