+ONE Housing Report

Dallas’ housing challenges are not going away, and It is imperative that the institutions, businesses, and residents of this city begin to seriously address our growing population, rising housing costs, and our need for a greater variety of housing. As we make those changes, let us not forget the historical housing inequity that got us to this point.

There is no simple solution, instead we will need a combination of City-wide, place-based, and population specific solutions. To aid in that conversation, we explored the idea of adding just one additional unit to existing single family lots, or +ONE housing.

We believe that +ONE is potentially one piece of our city’s affordable housing puzzle. Why focus on +ONE? The reasons are simple: +ONE allows us to make better use of what we have, it empowers existing and potential homeowners, and it has the potential for a significant number of units due to the sheer number of existing single family neighborhoods in Dallas.

The scale of +ONE housing means that all of us can play a role in this effort - whether you’re a lender, city council member, a builder, a designer, or a homeowner.

State of Dallas Housing - 5 Year Comparison Report

buildingcommunityWORKSHOP is excited to share our State of Dallas Housing - 5 Year Comparison Report! This report focuses on how Dallas’ housing landscape has changed over five years. Using our State of Dallas Housing 2017 report as a baseline, this year’s report shows how the data changed from 2016 to 2021.

You can also learn more about the current state of Dallas’ rental housing market by checking out Child Poverty Action Lab’s recently released Rental Housing Needs Assessment.

We hope this report, along with all the other great work happening in Dallas around housing, will lead to tangible outcomes for those in need of attainable housing. Learn how you can support attainable housing in Dallas by visiting Dallas Housing Coalition’s website

How to Be a Housing Advocate

Everyone deserves a safe, healthy, affordable place to live. Every neighborhood deserves housing that meets the diverse needs of our community. But unfortunately, the housing reality in most cities is far from perfect. Housing segregation persists due to a legacy of racist housing policies like redlining. Today, misconceptions about affordable housing persist among many residents — but housing diversity strengthens our economy, improves commuting times, and provides a number of other benefits.

If you would like to help promote housing diversity in your own neighborhood or city, [bc] has put together a guide on how to be a housing advocate that covers the following topics:

• What housing diversity is and why it’s a good thing

• Why the city of Dallas doesn’t have housing diversity

• Why it’s hard to find affordable housing

• Misconceptions surrounding affordable housing

• What YOU can do to be a housing advocate

The report features a case study of Dallas, but it applies to cities across the USA. To learn how you can be a Housing Advocate and promote housing diversity in EVERY neighborhood, read the full report here.

2018 State of Dallas Housing Report

Read the full report here!

Learn more about bcANALYTICS  and check out the 2016 and 2017 State of Dallas Housing Reports!

We are excited to release the third annual State of Dallas Housing report, the latest in our series of data-driven analytics reports that examine the issue of housing affordability within Dallas and present opportunities for equitable housing development.

The maps and graphics included in the report illustrate longitudinal trends in housing production and new residential construction, as well as growth in population, jobs, and income, across Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties. The report looks at median incomes by racial and ethnic group and by industry of employment in relation to average housing costs by Census tract.

The bcANALYTICS team interviewed 10 housing experts in Dallas to determine priority areas where additional research was needed. The need to better understand Dallas’s housing market within the context of the four-county region (Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant) emerged as a top priority. The report examines key data that demonstrates how Dallas’s housing market is not producing enough affordable housing to meet the needs of its socioeconomically diverse population. With costs of housing on the rise, the housing products on the Dallas market—and the regional market—are increasingly out of reach for many. Moving to surrounding communities does not, according to the study, provide a viable option for finding more affordable housing.

With the City of Dallas adopting a new Comprehensive Housing Policy, Dallas’s residents and stakeholders will need additional metrics and context to understand the issue of housing affordability at the city-wide scale. This new report aims to equip our city with the knowledge to be informed advocates for their communities’ interests.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In 2017 North Texas continued to be one of the fastest growing regions in the United States, and one of the top housing markets in the United States. As the City of Dallas’ prepares to implement its recently passed housing policy, aimed at increasing the production of housing units across the city, it is important to understand housing production at a larger scale to pinpoint where new housing units or typologies may be needed at this critical juncture. The 2018 State of Dallas Housing Report explores current housing trends in the City of Dallas and socioeconomic trends across the four most populous counties of North Texas (Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant) to help contextualize housing production and identify potential challenges and opportunities for improving access to housing for residents of Dallas and North Texas. 

The region’s rise in population, new housing, employment, and income exemplifies the uneven nature of development and economic growth across North Texas. Growth in the region is concentrated in specific cities and neighborhoods, while other areas have experienced less measurable change in recent years. Housing production has followed this growth in parts of the region. However, housing production in the city of Dallas has been heavily concentrated in just a few of the Dallas’ nearly 400 neighborhoods despite more widespread growth across Dallas.

This report helps quantify these trends in Dallas’ housing production from 2011 to 2017, contrasting them with socioeconomic changes and housing production across North Texas. Is Dallas’ goal of increasing the production of housing feasible, inclusive, and able to address the needs of all Dallas residents? Central to this report is the focus of housing accessibility and affordability for different income and population groups in Dallas, based on the ratio of housing values to median income. Has new housing production across North Texas provided opportunities for Dallas’ median income households to access housing in surrounding communities? This report suggests the answer is no. 

As more of Dallas’ housing production is focused on higher-valued homes, largely in the city’s northern sector, new housing built in North Texas from 2011 to 2016 was largely concentrated in areas that are the least affordable to Dallas’ median income households of color. As the City weighs a new housing policy to stimulate housing production in Dallas it is important to understand both the history of recent housing production in Dallas and the connection between housing production and Dallas’ existing residents. 

This report finds that despite large numbers of new housing units built across the region, many Dallas households are only able to easily afford housing in certain parts of North Texas, primarily in Census tracts that are heavily segregated with high poverty and further removed from much of the economic growth in North Texas. Additionally, some of the fastest growing industries in North Texas tend to pay lower wages that create an additional barrier to accessing affordable housing in proximity to jobs and other amenities based. The lack of production of affordable rental units only further enforces the challenge of Dallas’ minority and low income residents from accessing quality affordable housing at the expense of providing luxury housing for more affluent new residents moving to neighborhoods close to Downtown Dallas. 

2017 State of Dallas Housing Report

Learn more about AIM for Dallas and bcANALYTICS, and read the full 2017 State of Dallas Housing Report here. 

If you missed the April 25th event, you can watch the presentation and panel discussion here.

Like many cities across America, Dallas struggles with how to provide adequate housing for low, moderate, and middle income households. The city’s history of segregation between the north and south is evident in many ways, as discussed in 2016 State of Dallas Housing. In regards to housing, a 2015 Supreme Court ruling on Fair Housing and the City’s Voluntary Compliance Agreement with The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have put the City under pressure to address historic segregation through their policies and funding allocations. Are opportunities for housing available to all residents, in the north and south?  A holistic analysis of the city’s housing landscape is needed to help better understand current conditions and help shape housing policy to address the needs of Dallas.

The 2017 State of Dallas Housing is just that assessment of Dallas’ housing landscape - its current housing stock, the people that live in the city, activity to construct and sell new homes, and the policies that guide civic and market investments in housing.

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Join [bc] for a presentation of the 2017 State of Dallas Housing report followed by a panel discussion on housing affordability in Dallas on Tuesday, April 25th, at 6:30 pm at the Dallas Black Dance Theatre.  Panelist include - 

Roy Lopez - Community Development Office, U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Bernadette Mitchell - Director of Housing, City of Dallas
Demetria McCain - President, Inclusive Communities Project
Scott Galbraith - Vice President, Matthews Affordable Income Development

Please RSVP here.  Light refreshments will be provided.

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Executive Summary

The 2017 State of Dallas Housing documents the characteristics of Dallas’ housing landscape - the people who live in the city, the houses they live in, and activity to build or sell homes - and identifies major barriers to accessing adequate housing for many of the city’s 1.3 million residents. In a city that has seen sustained increases in housing costs following the 2008 Recession, it appears that many low- and middle-income Dallasites struggle to find housing that meets their needs, regardless of whether they are looking to rent or own. Dallas’ surprisingly low homeownership rate (43%) continues to sit well below peers across the country, but this varies greatly between northern and southern Dallas as well as between the city’s white and minority households.

Dallas’ North-South divide permeates the report. Differences between households, housing, and market activity represent serious issues facing the city’s population. The city’s minority population is highly concentrated in southern Dallas and live in housing that is older and more affordable, although of varying quality, and those that live in northern Dallas are overwhelmingly renters. Opportunities to find affordable housing are limited in the north, often by economic constraints facing more than a third of the city’s households. Despite this, the local housing market operates at the high end of the income bracket, where homes are built and sold that far exceed the financial realities of most households in the city.

The findings in this report highlight the need for adjustments in public policy and reveal inefficiencies in the current marketplace. The recommendations of this report speak to those adjustments and inefficiencies, providing a pathway to building a more equitable city:

Affordable Homes for Households earning less than $25,000 a year

Affordable Homes for Households earning $25,000 to $35,000 a year

Affordable Homes for Households earning $35,000 to $50,000 a year

Affordable Homes for Households earning $50,000 to $75,000 a year

Affordable Homes for Households earning $75,000 to $100,000 a year

Affordable Homes for Households earning $100,000 to $150,000 a year

Median Household Income

Median Home Sale Price

Key Findings

• 68,000 households in Dallas need housing that costs less than $400 per month;
• Homeownership for Dallas’ minority households falls behind rates of white households: 56% of white households are owner-occupied, compared to 31% for black households, 43% for Hispanic households, and 38% for Asian households;
• The median sale price of recently constructed homes rose from $145,00 in 2011 to $522,000 in 2016;
• 32% of homes in southern Dallas are valued less than $50,000, which represents just 6% of northern Dallas houses.

Recommendations

• The City of Dallas should undertake a thorough review of its Land Bank program;
• Innovative programs that promote housing affordability should be adopted by the City;
• Public/Private partnerships to expand market-rate affordable housing for middle-income homebuyers are needed across the City;
• Local homebuilders should explore opportunities for infill development of housing products that address the needs of low- and middle-income households identified in the report;
• The City should seek to further Fair Housing through all funding allocations, including HUD funding for single family ownership.