The housing crisis in North Carolina isn’t coming; it’s already here. Families are getting squeezed by a brutal combination of too few homes and too many barriers to building more.
We’re facing a statewide shortage of close to 200,000 affordable housing units. Renters in the bottom third of income earners are spending over 50% of their income just to keep a roof over their heads. Meanwhile, North Carolina was the ninth highest state for rental price increases in the country from 2024-2025. This is a crisis that cuts across geography, age, and political party.
While serving in Congress, housing was a top priority for me. But I’ll be the first to say: We should be doing more at the federal level to help people afford a decent place to live. I also know how slow and unpredictable Washington can be. That’s why North Carolina leaders — Democrats and Republicans alike — need to take action now.
The bipartisan tax deal Congress just passed did get a few things right. But for all the good it does, this bill also does real damage, especially from a housing equity perspective.
The bill fails to address the deeper regulatory dysfunctions that are driving the shortage in the first place. From Asheville to Raleigh, too many promising developments stall out because of outdated zoning codes, slow permitting, or excessive local mandates that drive up construction costs.
If we want real change, we need to fix the supply problem at its root. To do so, we will need to streamline approvals, modernize land-use policies, and encourage innovation in housing construction.
And while we’re at it, we should be careful not to let political scapegoating get in the way of practical solutions.
Right now, some in Washington are pushing to ban rent pricing algorithms, tools that use and analyze market data to help property owners set fair prices. These tools don’t cause rent hikes, they just report on what the market is bearing. Blaming them for a national housing shortage is like blaming the thermometer for the heat. Eliminating them would only cloud market signals, hinder transparency, and make life harder for renters and property managers alike. That’s the wrong direction. We should be working to make markets more responsive to the needs of the housing industry, not less.
North Carolina can do better. We can reject the parts of this bill that move us backward, double down on the reforms that help us build, and lead the nation in advancing a housing strategy rooted in supply, transparency, and local accountability.
Washington may not fix this problem any time soon, but we don’t have to wait. Let’s lead.