Affordable Housing Solutions

4 hours ago

Ben Young,

In this issue, we delve into how local communities are leveraging resources to get affordable housing projects going, with an inspiring range of approaches to this complex challenge. As we near the end of the legislative session, it’s worth examining broader barriers that are impeding development of affordable housing.

One issue that has emerged is property tax. Cities and counties have to pay for services for their residents, and with so many cuts to federal funding that money is going to have to come from somewhere. So if property taxes are capped, for instance, officials will have to find other ways to pay for services, such as sales taxes and service fees, which fall hardest on those least able to afford them.

Meanwhile, developers say affordable housing units are being taxed at the same rate as luxury units, which can appreciate in value (and rent) over time, while rents are capped for affordable housing residents. Property taxes can eat up to 50% of an affordable housing project’s revenue.

In August the Georgia Supreme Court settled a long-running case in South Georgia, directing counties to assess properties according to actual rents and not market rate comparisons. A more permanent statewide adoption of this sort of valuation would add more stability and clarity to developers and communities. The Georgia Affordable Housing Coalition is pushing for legislation that will make the valuation method permanent.

Property taxes can eat up to 50% of an affordable housing project’s revenue.

Restrictions on purchases of residential properties (limiting out-of-state or corporate investment) are trickier but could have real impact. Since the creation of Airbnb in 2007, property owners saw they could make more money in short-term rentals than from traditional renters, and many investors began scooping up homes for this purpose only, depleting stock and driving up nearby values and rents. Data provided to the Airbnb watchdog organization, Inside Airbnb, found that a quarter of the hosts on Airbnb run two-thirds of the properties listed.

Photo credit: Oleksandr Pidvalnyi

Around the same time (post-recession), corporate investors began purchasing residential properties at an unheard-of rate. A geographer at Georgia State University analyzed rental homes in Fulton, Clayton, DeKalb, Gwinnett and Cobb counties – and found just three investment companies owned nearly 11% of all single-family rentals, driving up fees, rents and valuations. Georgia’s HB 864, proposed in 2025, would end corporate ownership of single-family homes altogether, while HB 616, also proposed in 2025, would remove the loophole allowing corporations to claim depreciation of residential as a commercial property.

Two state bills would address how artificial intelligence impedes affordable housing. Experts have detected algorithmic bias that furthers discrimination in lending and tenant approval, reflecting a broader issue with AI in general. Furthermore, in 2024 the U.S. Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, an AI platform used by many renters, for inflating rent prices with its algorithms. HB 715, proposed in 2025, would regulate how AI is used to determine housing sales and rent prices in Georgia while the proposed HB 679 would prohibit AI rental price fixing altogether.

The state’s proposed CHOICE Act (HB 400) would incentivize local governments to adopt pro-housing and land use practices by offering them priority for state grants and loans. This approach could encourage best practices and potentially address restrictive NIMBY zoning that favors unaffordable housing.

The state is expanding sellable tax credits currently reserved for building apartments for low-income tenants to homebuilders targeting priced-out buyers. Proposed HB 230, effective this year, gives 20% in income tax credits to builders of single-family homes under $200,000 in Georgia. The Department of Community Affairs – which offers low-income housing tax credits and recently extended the historic homes tax credit for homes that meet National Register criteria to apply for a rehabilitation tax credit – has a new $125 million Workforce Housing Construction Loan Program. Currently reserved for rural areas, that could be extended to urban needs.

With talk of capping the property tax, maybe the state should consider capping rents as well, or repealing the code that preempts local governments from enacting rent control or stabilization ordinances. We could also repeal the ban on creating a rental registry, which has left many communities in the dark regarding their housing stock.

Georgia has long enjoyed rent and housing costs that are below the national average, but now we see both rising faster than the national rate in populous areas like Metro Atlanta. Regardless of the status of these bills at press time, no solution should be excluded from discussion. It’s a make-or-break moment.