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Texas is experiencing a severe housing shortage that is driving up housing prices and rents. And it’s getting worse and worse.

In 2022, Texas needed about 320,000 more housing units than it had, up from about 306,000 the year before. according to an estimate published Wednesday by the housing policy organization Up For Growth.

The shortage illustrates how Texas, which builds more housing than any other state, has struggled over the past decade to build enough housing to meet demand amid an economic boom. This problem underlies housing affordability issues in the state. Housing prices and rents in the state’s major metropolitan areas have soared due to increased competition for a limited supply of housing.

“While Texas has built a lot of housing overall, in many places it has simply not been enough to meet the demand in the state and people coming from out of state.” , said David Garcia, political director of Up For Growth.

Texas is not alone. The nationwide housing shortage has driven up housing costs in the United States and has been the subject of much debate during this year’s presidential campaign. In its latest report, Up For Growth said the country needed 3.8 million homes to alleviate its housing affordability problem, slightly fewer than in previous years.

In many of Texas’ largest urban areas, the shortage has worsened. According to Up For Growth, it has grown in the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and McAllen areas — even though many of those places have given the green light to build more homes than before the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19.

Much of this housing growth has taken the form of building more detached single-family homes in outlying suburban areas, Garcia noted — the way Texas has traditionally managed to keep housing costs down. distance. But the limits of that approach have become increasingly evident amid the state’s strong population growth, he said.

“In many places in Texas, you see the limitations that outward expansion alone cannot meet the full demands of the real estate market,” Garcia said.

Other places in Texas, like El Paso, have seen their housing shortage ease.

An apartment construction boom in the Austin-Round Rock area has helped the region reduce its housing shortage by nearly a third. The boom has injected tens of thousands of new apartments into the market, forcing rents to fall for 16 straight months. The region still needs nearly 24,000 housing units, according to the report, about 11,000 fewer than the previous year.

Even though the country’s housing shortage eased in 2022, that trend likely won’t persist for long, Garcia said. On the one hand, apartment builders have scaled back new projects amid higher financing costs, despite strong housing demand. The effects of this decline – namely higher housing costs due to a tighter market – will be felt after the doors of the last apartments opened during the boom open.

Policymakers at all levels of government must act to stem the shortage, housing advocates and experts say. State and federal officials need to devote more resources to helping low-income families who can’t find affordable housing in the market, they say.

Housing advocates have also sought to change local restrictions on what types of housing can be built and where it can be located. These rules, known as zoning regulations, effectively limit the number of housing units that can be built and lead to higher housing costs, they say.

Texas’ largest cities make it relatively easy to build single-family, detached homes and allow them in virtually any area intended for residential use. But a Texas Tribune analysis shows cities have largely isolated these areas from the denser, cheaper types of housing that would help them alleviate their shortage more quickly, such as townhouses, duplexes and smaller apartment buildings. Cities also leave relatively little land to build these types of houses or larger apartment buildings.

Relaxing these rules and allowing more types of housing to be built can help cities add more housing and control housing costs, a study suggests.

It was politically difficult. While a group of housing activists recently fought for such reforms in Texasthey face resistance from existing property owners and neighborhood groups who oppose these kinds of changes.

Texas lawmakers are likely to tackle the state’s housing affordability crisis when they convene in Austin next year. A key question will likely be whether the state or cities should set rules on where homes can be built.

Cities should still retain some control over how to address the crisis “based on the needs of their community,” Garcia said, but the state can “expect each community to do its part.”

“Otherwise, some cities are working in good faith, and others are just not,” Garcia said.