The problem is basic economics. Look to City Hall, not Congress.
By Dallas Morning News
Editorial Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
If there is one thing Americans could agree on around the Thanksgiving table this year, it’s the insane grocery bill, not to mention the cost of keeping a roof over the festivities.
Yes, it’s bad. Rents have jumped since the pandemic, and homeownership is moving further out of reach. The typical mortgage payment of someone who bought his or her first home this year — about $2,500 per month — is more than twice as large as what the average first-time homebuyer paid in 2020, according to the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Interest rates are higher today, but mortgage payments are also a function of a housing shortage and rising property values. Americans’ incomes, however, aren’t keeping pace.
Leave it to President Donald Trump to try to solve this predicament by meme. He recently posted an image on social media that was labeled “Great American Presidents,” with a portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the words “30-year mortgage” and a portrait of himself with the words “50-year mortgage.”
The informal proposal has been widely panned for its implications: marginally smaller mortgage payments in exchange for higher interest and a lifetime of debt. We wish Trump would dive into the problem with the seriousness it deserves. Housing affordability seems to top the agenda of every politician running for office.
We get the appeal of revisiting mortgages. It was the federal government’s intervention that gave us the 30-year fixed mortgage in the wake of the Great Depression. That housing finance system eventually made homeownership attainable for two-thirds of Americans.
But don’t look to Trump or Congress for a way out of the woods. We are facing a supply-and-demand issue, and the government officials best positioned to address it are in your statehouse and city hall. Every council member, every state legislator needs to be thinking about how they can promote housing construction. Better yet, how can the government get out of the way to make it easier for developers to build homes for people across the income spectrum?
Politicians at the state level are catching on. In 2025, states passed over 100 laws to allow more homes, including seven in Texas with bipartisan support, said Alex Horowitz, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Housing Policy Initiative.
Texas, with its size and lighter regulatory touch, does better than other states when it comes to housing supply, but it’s not as affordable as it once was. Developers find it tricky to do business in cities like ours. While Dallas’ processing of building permits has improved, complicated zoning rules make building here an expensive and stressful proposition.
Just saying “Build, baby, build” won’t get us more houses. Cutting red tape will.
By Dallas Morning News Editorial
Dallas Morning News editorials are written by the paper’s Editorial Board and serve as the voice and view of the paper. The board considers a broad range of topics and is overseen by the Editorial Page Editor.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
