I did attempt to read the paper but it's $400. It would be interesting to see where Houston falls in all this. The city has nearly zero zoning laws and has continually grown at the edges for the last several decades and has also traded single family lots for higher density housing in the inner and near city. In other words for people who say "well just let you develop more" it's happened here.
Houston is somewhat of a unicorn in this mix. To say the city has no zoning laws really only implicates a very small portion of the logical geographic area in the urban center.
The world-record sprawl (and commute times) of Houston are how the housing prices have historically been kept in check.
As someone who is actively working to find a home in this market, I can say for certain that these measures are no longer sufficient. Houston has a few unique hedges to the scalability problem, but it won't hold up to larger forces such as mass migration from other states.
Prices in the Houston market are still not within a range that would concern a Google employee, but for everyone who lives in the state and is receiving Texas-style wages, these prices might as well be as unattainable as housing in Manhattan or Silicon Valley.
Reporting of low house prices in the city limits of Houston is a bit of an illusion, true, because the city limits expand to many low density suburban areas that can have an hour commute to downtown in traffic. And there definitely several neighborhoods where one can participate in California-style bidding wars with other rich folks -- if you want a safe, walkable neighborhood close to the city center next to a good elementary school, expensive salons, and several fine sushi places, you will pay a lot. However, in Houston you always at least have the option of buying a cheaper house farther away. That's not even to mention the rents, which as far as I can tell have barely budged in the past 6+ years.
> if you want a safe, walkable neighborhood close to the city center next to a good elementary school, expensive salons, and several fine sushi places, you will pay a lot. However, in Houston you always at least have the option of buying a cheaper house farther away.
Yes if you wait for others to gentrify a neighborhood you'll pay the price. The third option is to take a risk and be an early adopter in an inner city neighborhood. Midtown used to be shotgun shacks that dated back to late 1800s. Now it's a sea of condominiums. East of Downtown (aka EaDo) was post-wwii starter homes and industrial, it too is now townhomes and condos. Third Ward (my neighborhood) was a mix of rental property and retirees and now has high and medium density housing mixed with condos and townhomes which are slowly pressing East towards TSU and U of H. The same happened to Moody Park area and Acres Homes is next.
Agreed on rent. It is holding really stable, but that will change once investors run out of $200~300k houses to slurp up. We are getting to the end of the song as far as I can tell. Last house I looked at under $300k had over 50 offers.
>Houston is somewhat of a unicorn in this mix. To say the city has no zoning laws really only implicates a very small portion of the logical geographic area in the urban center.
I'm not quite sure what you mean: Houston's city limits span 667 square miles! That's not a very small portion in the urban center. It's true that there are a few pocket cities embedded in the city that may have different zoning laws: Piney Point, Bellaire and West University, but Houston relentlessly grew through annexation until it was slowed by lawsuits. It still continues to grow though annexations... see [1]
I also disagree about home prices being unattainable; I think implicit in your statement are assumptions about schools, neighborhood walkability and the like. There are plenty of places that aren't yet ideal but are far cheaper. In my zip code there are plenty of listings for houses and lots in the $100k range but at the top of the market there's a mansion for $2.1 million. Best of luck in your search for something with your criteria.
If your only constraint is the lowest possible home price, your best bet would be to get a tent from Academy and set up somewhere around 610 and Galleria.
Houston is an interesting data point in all this because (partially due to geographical luck) it does seem to a) be a form of solution to this problem that (b) many people will consider terrible and (c) other people will love. Mostly because even though it is not zoned much, most of the areas are basically interchangeable; you either like it or don't.
