The idea started with a sermon Micah Longmire heard at his Presbyterian church in Ogden, Utah, about the importance of grandparents in a child’s life.

Longmire, now 31, exchanged a look with his mother-in-law. “We were like, ‘I’d be OK living with you after that sermon,’ and the ball rolled downhill from there,” Longmire said.

Both families are now living in a house they bought together in Chattanooga, Tennessee, after a two-year nationwide search. Their partnership is an example of the lengths first-time homebuyers have gone to this year amid stubbornly high home prices and interest rates.

“I make $200,000 and I wouldn’t have been able to buy a house by myself. That’s ridiculous,” Longmire said. His wife’s parents contributed $200,000 from selling their own home in Utah and retired to live with them in a 3,500-square-foot house that cost $585,000.

Home prices rose this year, though not as much as inflation, so affordability increased in all regions as of April compared with a year before, according to the National Association of Realtors.

But prices are settling at a high level. After inflation adjustment, they’re still less than 4% below the 2022 peak, though some areas with large-scale building, mostly in Florida and Texas, have seen prices drop, according to real estate analyst Bill McBride’s CalculatedRisk newsletter.

Help from family and even shared living arrangements are becoming the norm in higher-priced areas.

“The family now has accumulated so much equity that they’re able to help their kids make these downpayments. Many people like to live in multi-generational households for reasons of culture and also cost,” said Nadia Evangelou, senior economist for the National Association of Realtors.

Nationally a typical single-family home cost $422,300 in April, up $4,300 from a year before, according to the National Association of Realtors. But the typical family made about $6,000 more in that time, and mortgage rates came down a little, so affordability improved.

But a shortage of affordable starter homes is slowing the market and keeping it hard to buy for first-timers. Last year the median age of first-time buyers reached a record 40 years old, while the median repeat buyer was 62, as the housing market became dominated by repeat buyers who could sell a house at today’s high prices.

“Affordability today is still nowhere near what it was for much of the last decade,” Evangelou said. Between 2009 and 2016, the typical family had about 70% more income than it needed to buy the typical median-priced house, while today it’s a much smaller margin of about 11% as of April.

San Francisco is an extreme example: The artificial intelligence boom has driven median home prices to a record $2.15 million, according to the real estate brokerage firm Compass. So Charlie and Nettie Culp felt lucky to get a 1,500-square-foot condo for $1.5 million. The couple, both 32, work in finance and tech and saved for years with some family help, putting down $500,000 and taking a $1 million mortgage in May.

“That’s a lot of money for what you get, but that’s the market and it’s a beautiful city,” Charlie Culp said. He has lived in the city since 2015, at times sharing rent among as many as four people while saving money.

“I saw the AI boom coming in San Francisco, so we decided to reach out to our landlord and ask if she was willing to sell,” he said.

First-time buyers are particularly hard-pressed: They lack profits from a previous house, and the smaller houses they can buy are in short supply.  The number of houses on the market is rising, but mostly at the high-priced end.

“Many young households still face the most challenging homebuying environment in decades,” Evangelou said. “The question isn’t simply whether more homes are coming into the market, the question is whether those homes that are available for sale are at price points that local households can actually afford.”

The nation needs another 311,000 houses selling for less than $261,000 to meet the needs of middle-income families — buyers earning around $75,000 — according to a May report that Evangelou co-authored. Several states considered legislation this year aimed specifically at creating more starter homes.

A New Mexico law signed in March by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham creates no-interest loans of up to $75,000 for down payments to first-time buyers with moderate income. The loans are meant as an incentive for builders to create smaller houses.

Several states moved to curb minimum lot sizes, seen as an impediment to starter homes and other affordable housing, often drawing opposition from cities.

Colorado considered a measure this year allowing smaller lots for building, hoping to “expand attainable homeownership opportunities for first-time homebuyers.” It was opposed by the Colorado Municipal League, which said it “removes community planning and public input from the decision-making process.” The bill passed the state House but was killed in a state Senate committee.

Florida also considered smaller lots and other incentives for starter homes in a bill this year that died in committee after opposition from the Florida League of Cities.

A similar bill that would limit minimum lot sizes, aimed at creating more starter homes and other affordable housing, was under consideration this year in Hawaii but did not pass after clearing a state Senate committee. Democratic state Sen. Stanley Chang, the bill’s sponsor, told Stateline that “some version of the concept” will be considered in future sessions.

The Midwest continues to have the highest affordability, according to the National Association of Realtors report.

Ty Setty, 29, and his wife, Allisha, 32, had been renting for six years near Cincinnati, but they needed no family help to buy their new $170,000 house, a two-bedroom in suburban Delhi Township, Ohio.

“We had been looking at houses for a few years and just couldn’t afford them, or we let ourselves think that,” Ty Setty said.

After two weeks of looking on Zillow and touring nine houses, they saw this house as a new listing and “fell in love. We put an offer on it that night,” Ty Setty said. “They accepted the next morning. That was a long 12 hours.”

For the Longmire family in Chattanooga, the partnership between parents raising children and grandparents needing their own affordable housing has worked out well.

“Grandparents want to live with their grandchildren, and you know parents need a babysitter on date night,” Micah Longmire said. “The story that we’re telling through our life right now is, that if you can work with your family, don’t give in to the pressure of the world to go it alone.”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

There were fewer homeless people in the United States on a single night in January 2025 than in January 2024, but homelessness increased in 28 states, according to the latest federal count.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development counted 745,652 homeless people in its latest “point-in-time” estimate, down 3% from the year before. The count was conducted before the Trump administration late last year announced a shift away from long-term housing in favor of funding transitional housing with work and addiction treatment requirements.

HUD said the decrease was driven largely by a 4% decline in the number of people in emergency shelter. The number of unsheltered homeless people fell by 3%.

In releasing the new numbers, the Trump administration noted that the overall homeless population has increased 27% since 2013 — proof, it said, that so-called housing first policies that many cities and states have pursued during that time have not been successful.

Among the states, North Carolina saw the largest percentage increase in its homeless population. Its homeless count jumped by 3,886 or 33%, largely because of Hurricane Helene, which displaced thousands of residents in the fall of 2024, prompting the addition of 4,000 emergency shelter beds.

Oregon (up 19%) and Maryland (up 17%) were the only other states that reported increases of more than 15%. Hawaii (down 41%) and Illinois (down 44%) saw the largest percentage decreases.

Nationwide, about 22 of every 10,000 people are homeless on a given night. The state with the highest percentage of homeless people is New York, where 73 out of every 10,000 people are homeless.

One of the big improvements from 2024 to 2025 was a decline in the number of unhoused families with children, which was down 11%.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

Private equity firms own nearly 3 million apartment units, about 13% of the total apartments across the country, according to a new analysis from watchdog group Private Equity Stakeholder Project. 

And most have been fairly recent purchases. The companies acquired more than 1.7 million of those, or 57%, since 2018, and about 45% of them since 2021, the report found.

More than two-thirds of those units are located in just 10 states: Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, North Carolina, Colorado, New York, Arizona, Virginia and Washington.

Texas has the highest number of private equity-owned apartments, the analysis said, with more than 1,900 properties and nearly 580,000 units. 

Private equity firms own nearly 1 in 3 apartment units in Georgia and almost 1 in 4 in North Carolina, the report found. 

Private equity firms use pooled investments from funds, endowments and wealthy individuals to buy a controlling stake in a company, try to maximize its value — often by cutting costs — and then sell it at a profit.

The metropolitan areas of Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas-Fort Worth; and Orlando, Florida, have private equity ownership shares above 30%. 

Many of the states with the highest private equity ownership also have seen some of the largest increases in “cost-burdened” renters, the report said, meaning they spend at least 30% of their income on rent and utilities. Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Texas and Florida were among the six states with the biggest increases in such renters. 

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org. 

Housing shortages have eased in most states since 2020, as new construction has made apartments and houses more affordable.

Connecticut, New Jersey and Rhode Island are the only states that have lost housing units per capita since 2020, according to a Stateline analysis of housing data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Most other states have built more than enough housing to account for population growth.

The increase in the supply of apartments helped drive down the nation’s median rent in April by 1.7% compared with the same month last year, according to a May report from Apartment List, a company that posts rental listings online.

Single-family homes also are starting to get more affordable, according to a May report from the National Association of Realtors. The group determines “affordability” by calculating whether or not a typical family earns enough income to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced, existing single-family home.

The improvement in affordability is especially dramatic in the South and Midwest, while affordability is lagging but improving in the West and Northeast.

In analyzing the housing supply, one housing unit for 2.5 residents is considered a healthy balance, though the ratio can be lower in places with large families or higher where there are many young singles or older people living alone.

Nationwide, the ratio ranges from 1.8 people per unit in Maine to 2.7 people per unit in Utah, according to the Stateline analysis. In most places, the ratio of people to housing units is shrinking, as the housing supply grows.

Some states have added far more housing than residents since 2020. Vermont, for example, has added nearly 10 times as many housing units — around 12,000 —  as new residents. The District of Columbia and New Mexico have added five times as many new units as new residents.

The story is different in Connecticut, New Jersey and Rhode Island. In those three states, the housing supply is lagging behind population growth, with about three new residents per new housing unit in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and almost four residents per unit in New Jersey.

New Jersey has added about 260,000 new residents since 2020, but only about 66,500 new housing units. The state is seeking to impose affordable housing quotas on towns, but has run into strong resistance from suburban residents.

In February, a group of New Jersey towns, led by Montvale in Bergen County, a New York City suburb,  asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop a March deadline for a new phase of affordable housing plans to start, but were rebuffed without explanation later that month by Justice Samuel Alito.

In court papers, town leaders said their residents don’t want the denser housing required by the 2024 state law, and that residents would likely vote them out of office if they implemented it.

At a February public hearing about the plan in Ridgewood, a town in Bergen County, “elected officials continued to receive objections from residents…ranging from accusations against local leaders of conspiracies, accepting campaign donations and personally benefitting from the rezoning,” according to court papers filed by the towns.

Apartment List does not consider Bergen County separately from the New York City area, where home prices have increased 5.6% from last year as of April 30, according to Zillow, to a median $773,069. A one-bedroom apartment in the county can command $2,400 or more according to Rentometer, a rental market analysis site.

In contrast, Travis County, Texas — which includes most of Austin — has added about 99,500 new residents and 120,000 new units since 2020. That disparity helps explain why the Austin area had the largest drop in median rent between 2025 and 2026 in the new Apartment List estimates, declining 5.7% since last year and 22% since 2022.

Along with Austin, apartment-building has driven a decline in rents in Sun Belt metros such as Denver, Orlando, Phoenix and Tampa, according to the Apartment List report.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

An increasing number of conservative states are mandating that state and local social service providers verify and report the immigration status of the people they serve — in some cases threatening stiff penalties for public employees who fail to comply.

Under federal law, immigrants who are in the United States illegally are generally barred from receiving public benefits such as nonemergency health care, food aid and housing help, though a handful of left-leaning states use their own money to provide such benefits.

Supporters of the new verification and reporting laws say they will help curb illegal immigration by making it more difficult for people who aren’t eligible for public aid to receive it.

Government-funded health care, housing aid and the right to have a driver’s license are a “pull factor that encourages illegal immigration,” said Cooper Smith, director of homeland security and immigration at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that has worked on policy development with the current Trump administration.

Government benefits, Smith said, are “an incentive for (immigrants) to come here and cross the border and make this their home, and we don’t want to see that.”

In Tennessee, legislators this week sent a bill to Republican Gov. Bill Lee that would require all state and local agencies to verify the immigration status of people who apply for federal, state or local government benefits, and to report those who are here illegally to the legislature and the state’s new immigration enforcement agency.

The measure, which the governor is expected to sign, authorizes the state attorney general to investigate possible violations, and threatens jail time or a loss of state funding for workers or agencies that fail to comply.

The potential penalties in Tennessee’s law are especially strict, but this year Indiana, Utah, and Wyoming also enacted laws requiring state and local agencies to verify the immigration status of people applying for certain benefits. In Indiana and Wyoming, agencies also must report immigrants who are here illegally to federal authorities. Louisiana enacted a similar verification and reporting law last year.

The Indiana and Wyoming laws go beyond the specific individuals applying for aid.

In considering an application for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Indiana law requires agencies to notify federal authorities if they cannot verify the immigration status of any member of an applicant’s household. Similarly, the Wyoming law requires the state health department and the state department of family services to notify federal immigration authorities if they determine that anyone applying for public benefits resides in a household that includes a person who is here illegally.

Critics say the new state laws will dissuade many people who are eligible for benefits — especially those with family members who are here illegally — from getting help they are entitled to, and force state and local officials to perform an immigration enforcement role for which they are ill equipped.

“They have to do this verification process for everybody that walks in the door. This is something that slows down services for every Tennessean in the name of collecting data and trying to make assessments that folks are not trained to make,” Democratic state Sen. Jeff Yarbro said last month during the floor debate on the bill.

“There’s probably no one who understands enough of the rules to make that determination,” he said. “But we are forcing that decision upon every single government office in the state of Tennessee — it’s just a little bit insane.”

Tanya Broder, an attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for immigrants, said the new laws represent an escalation of state anti-immigration efforts. She said the measures demonstrate that conservative states are moving in lockstep with the Trump administration.

“There are many, many states that impose restrictions on access to public to state and local public benefits, but some of these reporting requirements that states are proposing now likely do violate the law,” Broder said. “I think they are sowing a campaign of fear and misinformation.”

Broder added that the fear of penalties might prompt agency workers in Tennessee to overreport and potentially engage in racial profiling.

The Tennessee bill is part of a sweeping package of immigration enforcement measures the state legislature approved this year. Tennessee’s broad immigration agenda was crafted in coordination with the White House, specifically with Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Earlier this month, Lee signed a measure that requires state judges to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. And last month, the governor signed a bill that makes it a crime under Tennessee law for an adult to refuse or fail to leave the state within 90 days of a final order of removal. The law also makes it a crime for immigrants to try to enter the state if they have an outstanding deportation order.

Other bills that would require local sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration agents and make it illegal for people who are living in the U.S. illegally to operate a commercial vehicle or truck in the state are on Lee’s desk awaiting his signature.

Smith, of the America First Policy Institute, said Tennessee is “serving as a model for other states to follow.”

Republicans struggled this year to secure funding for the Department of Homeland Security, Smith noted, “so they know that their ability to get meaningful legal immigration reform, through both houses of Congress and signed by the president, is very, very unlikely,” he said. “So the next step is to do as much as you can at the state level.”

Julia Gelatt, an associate director at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, agreed with Smith’s assessment of the political situation.

“There are things that the federal government can’t control, or that may be harder to achieve at the federal level, particularly with a Congress that isn’t passing bills,” Gelatt said.

“We know that Stephen Miller advised Tennessee on their immigration bills, and I think that his philosophy is that the federal government and state governments should make life in the United States so hard for people who don’t have legal status that they decide to go home.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

Kris Seals, a Brookfield alderman, has resigned following public outcry over anti-Muslim social media posts he made. Though Seals initially resisted calls for his resignation, he has since backpedaled and apologized for his comments, which discussed violence against Muslims. 

“I would like to apologize to the Muslim community for my insensitive and inappropriate statements I made online,” Seals said in an emailed statement which was shared by Brookfield City Attorney Jenna Merten, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. 

Shortly after Seals was reelected in an uncontested race on April 7, Fox 6 Milwaukee reported on numerous posts the alder made on LinkedIn. “They will take over your country with out (sic) one shot,” read one of Seals’ posts. “They will out vote you in less then (sic) 30 years and then you will be living under Sharia Law.” Fox 6 Milwaukee said the posts were first noticed by a local resident who shared them with the TV news station. “They are a sick religion,” Seals wrote in  another post. “This must stop. deport them all.” In yet another post Seals wrote “It’s time to wipe out the immigrants from Britain and all of the EU.” Another of his  posts referred to shooting Muslims and Somalis with  “bacon rapped (sic) bullets,” topped off with laughing emojis. 

Seals had also made a post reading “Obummer is not the President anymore! So Presidential immunity is Mute. Hang him for treason,” and another one suggesting that criminals should be shot twice in the head to save “the people tons of money in court cost and prison cost, also eliminating the dems from becoming involved in trying to save their voter base.” Images of another post have been shared with the Examiner, with the posts alleging that “every blue state has Billions in fraud” which Seals re-posted and commented that, “I think it’s way past time for Public Executions.”

Fox6 Milwaukee reporters questioned Seals at his home. Seals said “it’s obnoxious, these people,” referring to what he called “extreme Muslims” and asking the reporter to “put that word in there, because it’s not all Muslims.” Grinning, Seals admitted to making the posts about bacon-wrapped bullets, a discriminatory trope mocking the Muslim prohibition on eating pork. Seals told the reporters that the only post he regretted was the one calling for criminals to be shot. “Sometimes we say a lot of things online that we don’t necessarily mean,” Seals said. He later claimed that his LinkedIn posts were  bringing attention to important issues. “Those are problems,” said Seals. “I have a right to say how I feel.”

The comments caused an uproar and Muslim community organizations called for Seals to resign. “Public officials take an oath to serve all constituents, not to demonize them,” said Robert McCaw, government affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Seals’ violent and dehumanizing remarks targeting Muslims and immigrants are not just offensive, they are dangerous. This rhetoric fuels hate, legitimizes discrimination, and puts real people at risk. It is fundamentally incompatible with the responsibilities of public office.” 

Seals said in his resignation statement that he spoke with a member of the Muslim community. “I appreciate they are willing to forgive me for the rude statements I made,” he said. “I look forward to meeting with them and to get an even better understanding of the Community.”

The common council will now need to determine how to fill Seals’ empty seat. It wasn’t the first time Brookfield’s common council had to contend with inflammatory comments made by Seals. 

In 2023, Seals drew attention for speaking against a proposed affordable housing development in his wealthy, mostly white suburb. “The problem that I have is the future of Brookfield,” said Seals. “What we are trying to do is step down to a West Allis or a Wauwatosa. No, we’re Brookfield. We don’t step down to allow the people who can’t afford to live in Brookfield to come in, because then we become West Allis, then we become Wauwatosa. This is not what Brookfield is. I’ve been here 60 years, this is not Brookfield.” Seals also said people who want to live in Brookfield need to “put your nose to the grindstone” until they can afford to live there. 

An attempt to censure Seals for his comments on affordable housing failed, with 16 local residents appearing to speak in support of the alder. One woman called his opposition to the housing project “exemplary.”

Brookfield Ald. Michael Hallquist pushed for Seals’ censure in 2023. In an emailed statement to Wisconsin Examiner, Hallquist applauded his common council colleague’s resignation over three years later.

“First and foremost, I want to reassure the Muslim members of our community that you belong here, you are loved, and you are every much as Brookfield as my family is,” said Hallquist. “You are our neighbors and we will continue to show up for you.”

Hallquist said that Seals “represents an ever-decreasing attitude of hate and intolerance in our community. While I appreciate his apology, I hope he sincerely intends to learn more from his neighbors on his pathway to forgiveness, and I wish him well on that journey. It speaks volumes to the kindness of our Muslim community to offer him the opportunity to do-so.” Hallquist concluded that, “Brookfield is what we make it, so I hope we continue to create a culture for our city where everyone feels safe, appreciated, and welcome.”

This article has been updated with comment from Ald. Michael Hallquist.