Texans are no strangers to housing cycles. What has changed is how much housing now shapes everyday decisions — where people can live, how far they commute, and whether they can stay close to family, schools, and work.
The Texas comptroller’s office reports that the median home price in Texas rose by roughly 40 percent between 2019 and 2023. While the market has cooled from its peak, affordability never truly returned. As mortgage rates climbed, the same price tag translated into a much higher monthly payment. By early 2024, national affordability had fallen to its weakest level since the mid-1980s.
As a result, people are renting longer than they planned, compromising more on home location, and stretching their commutes farther out due to their budgetary realities. Employers, from small businesses to school districts, are struggling to hire because prospective workers can’t find any affordable housing nearby.
Some activist members of Congress continue pointing the blame at scapegoats, such as the Kelley Blue Book-style pricing software that landlords use to understand what their homes are worth today. But the real issue is that housing supply is not keeping up with demand. That is inflating home prices across the board because it has led to bidding wars for the few homes that are available.
Texas grew quickly, and for years, homebuilding did not keep pace. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has linked chronic underbuilding to roughly a 20 percent increase in house prices relative to incomes. That long-term imbalance is now showing up in daily life across the state.
If supply is the constraint, policy should be judged by whether it helps add homes or helps existing homes move back into circulation.
That is why, just weeks ago, Sen. John Cornyn teamed up with senators from both parties to introduce the More Homes on the Market Act — to help fix this problem through the U.S. tax system.
When homeowners sell a house, they can exclude a certain amount of profit from taxes. But that tax break hasn’t been updated since 1997, even though home prices in Texas have climbed dramatically since then. Cornyn’s bill would bring the rule up to date by doubling the exclusion to $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for married couples.
In Texas’s major metro areas, many longtime homeowners are sitting on large gains on paper. They may want to sell, but the tax hit can make them think twice about putting their home on the market.
Sen. Cornyn’s bill, should it be enacted, can quickly put thousands of homes on the market. And that will be a huge step in the right direction to making the Texas housing industry more affordable.
His bill currently has bipartisan support. When lawmakers can agree on a practical change that makes the market work a little better, that kind of cooperation should be welcomed.
Cornyn’s proposal is not a cure-all, and it should not be sold as one. But it targets a real bottleneck and moves in the right direction: more listings and some breathing room in a market that has become too tight for too many Texans.
It is a sensible step, and one worth supporting.
James Earl White is a former member of the Texas House of Representatives.