NORTH TEXAS HOME BUILDERS A
S
S
O
C
I
A
T
I
O
N
August2026
4410 Fairway Boulevard Wichita Falls, TX 76308 P: 940.692.2211 www.nthba.com
From the President
Special Thanks to our 202 North Texas Home Builders Association I did two things last month that tell you where our business actually is: sitting across from a buyer Partners:
Platinum
Gold
running the numbers on a payment, and sitting in front of the city trying to get dirt approved. Neither one sounds much like the national headlines. If you read the news, you'd think we were all going under. Builder confidence has been under 40 for fifteen straight months, the longest run since 2012. Four in ten builders cut prices in July, and two in three are buying down rates or paying closing costs just to get somebody to the table. Then Texas REALTORS® put out second quarter numbers and the picture changed -all four big metros down, Abilene up 13.6%, Texarkana up 16.6%, statewide median flat. So the "Texas housing market" isn't one market. Austin and Dallas overbuilt entry-level product and are working through it. We never did. Our constraint isn't empty houses -- it's lots, trades, and how long it takes to get through the process. Different problem, different solution.
Silver
One more item worth your time: the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law July 11, the first real housing bill out of Washington since the 1990s. Starting in 2029, it ties federal block grant money to how cities handle zoning and land use. Anybody who's spent an evening in front of P&Z over a plat knows what local process costs a project, and this is the first time in my career Washington has put real money behind that question. We have three years to help the city write that plan as a partner with data, rather than react to it later as a trade group with a complaint. I'd rather be at the table. continues on pg. 2