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Good evening,

North Carolina likes to think of itself as the affordable alternative to Florida, California, or the Northeast. And compared to those places, that reputation is deserved.

But affordability is relative, and in 2025, it’s becoming a dangerously misleading one.

The truth ([link removed]) is that housing in North Carolina is getting more expensive faster than many families can keep up. The average home listing now sits around $520,000. That’s below the national average, but it still represents a sharp jump from just a few years ago.

Meanwhile, wages have not grown nearly as quickly. The result is a quiet squeeze on young families, first-time buyers, and workers who simply want to live near their jobs.

The problem isn’t a lack of demand; the real issue is supply.

According to state estimates ([link removed]) , North Carolina is short roughly 764,000 housing units over the next five years. That gap didn’t appear overnight. It’s the result of decades of underbuilding, especially in fast-growing metro areas like Raleigh, Charlotte, and the Triangle.

When supply is artificially limited, prices rise. Inventory remains historically tight, leaving buyers and renters with fewer options and higher costs.

Why hasn’t the market responded? Because local policy has kept it from doing so. For years, zoning rules across the state made it illegal, or nearly impossible, to build anything other than large, single-family homes in many neighborhoods, even as population growth surged.

Some cities are finally learning this lesson. Raleigh and Chapel Hill have begun loosening restrictions on “missing middle” housing, allowing more modest, flexible housing types without massive subsidies or new government programs. Early results show more homes being approved simply because red tape was removed.

The takeaway is simple: North Carolina’s housing crunch is not a market failure. It’s a policy failure.

If lawmakers want to keep the American Dream within reach for North Carolinians, they must stop treating housing like something to ration and start letting it be built.

You can read more about the NC housing and regulations here ([link removed]) , here ([link removed]) , and here ([link removed]) .
Esse quam videri,

Donald Bryson
CEO
John Locke Foundation

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More from Locke

1) 🧐🧐🧐 The trouble with rational basis review, part one: A case study ([link removed])
* Dr. Jay Singleton, an eye surgeon, is challenging North Carolina’s Certificate of Need (CON) law, which prevents him from performing most surgeries at his own accredited facility, forcing patients to use a local hospital at significantly higher costs.
+ Singleton argues the CON law violates the North Carolina State Constitution, specifically provisions regarding the "law of the land" (§ 19), prohibitions on exclusive "emoluments or privileges" (§ 32), and the ban on "monopolies" (§ 34).
+ Courts have repeatedly dismissed Singleton’s case without a hearing by applying "rational basis review."
o This doctrine presumes economic regulations are constitutional unless "plainly irrational," leading courts to defer to legislative decisions rather than examining facts.
* As currently applied, rational basis review shields state laws from legitimate constitutional challenges and effectively denies citizens their right to a fair trial in open court.
* This case gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to instruct the lower courts on the proper application rational basis review, and remind them that North Carolinians have a constitutional right to a fair trial in open court.

You can read the full case study here ([link removed]) .

2) 🏠🏠🏠 Not all property tax levy limits are created equal ([link removed])
* As the debate in North Carolina over how best to address property tax reform unfolds, levy limits are likely to take center stage as a viable policy option.
+ Unlike rate caps (which limit the tax percentage) or assessment limits (which cap the growth of a property's taxable value), levy limits place a "hard cap" on the total amount of revenue a local government can collect from property taxes.
+ Assessment limits (like California’s Proposition 13) create "lock-in" effects and inequities, where neighbors with identical homes pay vastly different tax amounts based on when they purchased their property.
* Levy limits are a more effective and equitable tool, because they:
+ Directly control the growth of government spending.
+ Force "revenue neutrality," meaning that when property values rise significantly, the tax rate must automatically drop to keep total revenue within the cap.
+ Prevent "unlegislated tax increases" that occur when local governments keep rates the same while property values soar.
* Well-designed levy limits, often tied to a formula of inflation plus population growth, are the gold standard for protecting taxpayers without creating the market distortions or unfairness associated with other tax-limitation regimes.

You can read the full article here ([link removed]) .

3) 📝📝📝 How accountable are North Carolina public schools, really — Part 2 ([link removed])
* Accountability in schools includes being democratically accountable to their communities.
+ Schools and school boards must reflect local values and be responsive to local concerns.
+ Unfortunately, this standard is hard to achieve when so many school boards in North Carolina are selected in off-year elections, which are notorious for low voter turnout.
+ This consequently increases the influence of teacher unions and professional associations over local school boards.
* Approximately half of school board races go uncontested, and incumbents are re-elected 80% of the time, leading to stagnant leadership.
+ Additionally, since two-thirds of local school funding comes from the state with "strings attached," school boards tend to focus more on state mandates than on local parental concerns.
* Public schools must also be educationally accountable, meaning students are learning what they should and are able to progress to the next level academically.
+ Every state had to develop an accountability system for its K–12 schools as a condition for receiving federal funds.
o North Carolina’s state plan is over 200 pages filled with complicated rubrics and calculations.
o The variety of metrics and alternative options make it very easy for schools to find what they need to stay out of trouble.
* The same state agency responsible for educating students also develops the tests and evaluation systems used to measure their performance.
+ While charter schools can be shut down for failure, traditional public schools that underperform often receive more funding for remediation, rather than facing serious administrative or financial consequences.
* If North Carolina public schools were a business, their bottom lines would be red and the state or local school board would be calling for new leadership.
* That North Carolina continues to tolerate the same disappointing results points to a very large problem.

You can get the full picture here ([link removed]) .

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