Dallas vs Houston: which should you move to?
Dallas or Houston? Housing, rent, crime, climate, income, taxes and transit, side by side, from each city's own published figures. Written for someone deciding where to live, not for a ranking.
Dallas
Houston
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Both cities are in Texas and both were priced at Freddie Mac's 7.03% rate of 24 September 2026, so the rate and the state's rules are shared, but the prices are different measures: Dallas's is the median single-family sale inside the city, Houston's the Houston Association of Realtors' median for all of Greater Houston. Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $3,529 a month on Dallas's $469,900 and $2,578 on Houston's regional $330,000, roughly 57% of Dallas's median household income of $74,323 and 48% of Houston's $64,361. On Zillow's index for each city the typical home is $305,765 against $261,740. Neither levies an income tax, both charge 8.25% sales tax, and on the same $330,000 house Houston's eight taxing units charge $4,391 against $4,815 from Dallas's five. Crime favors Dallas: 577 violent offenses per 100,000 against 890, and about 10.5 homicides per 100,000 against 11.3. The two metros are the country's fourth and fifth largest, and Houston's added the most people of any in 2024-25. Choose Dallas for the lower violence, the drier air and DFW. Choose Houston for the cheaper house, energy and medicine, and a 12.1 C January.
| Measure | Dallas | Houston | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| City population | 1,329,491 (2025) | 2,397,315 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Metro population | 8,477,157 (2025) | 7,904,627 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
| Five-year growth Growth is pressure on rents and roads as much as it is opportunity, so it is reported without a winner. | 1.9% (2020-2025) | 4.2% (2020-2025) | Not directly comparable |
What a home costs in each
The figures the two cities' rent-versus-buy and mortgage calculators run on, read from the same tables.
| Measure | Dallas | Houston | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benchmark home price MLS® HPI or equivalent benchmark. Lower is treated as the advantage, which is the buyer's view rather than the owner's. | $469,900 (August 2026) | $330,000 (August 2026) | Houston |
| Detached house benchmark Dallas and Houston publish a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat. | $469,900 | $330,000 | Houston |
| Apartment or condominium benchmark | $310,000 | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Two-bedroom rent | $1,853/mo (average, August 2026) | $1,327/mo (median, September 2026) | Houston |
| One-bedroom rent | $1,416/mo | $1,120/mo | Houston |
| Two-bedroom rent against median income A year of two-bedroom rent as a share of the median household income below. A household paying the median rent out of the median income is a fiction, but it is the same fiction in both columns and it crosses currencies. | 29.9% of a year's income | 24.7% of a year's income | Houston |
| Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down 30-year amortization on American monthly compounding, the convention in both. | $2,509/mo at 7.03% | $1,762/mo at 7.03% | Houston |
| Price to household income Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not. | 6.3× | 5.1× | Houston |
| Property tax on the benchmark home The effective rate on market value, which is what the two rates have in common and what the Advantage column is decided on; the bills are in each city's own dollars. | $7,448/yr (1.585%, 2025) | $4,392/yr (1.331%, 2025) | Houston |
| Transfer tax on the benchmark home Compared as a share of the price. Where the seller pays it, it is a cost of leaving rather than arriving. | None | None | Even |
| Rent control A cap protects a sitting tenant and does nothing for the next lease, so neither column is simply better. | Forbidden by state law | Forbidden by state law | Not directly comparable |
Dallas: About 1.58% of value for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $469,900 median single-family sale price. A house in the City of Dallas and Dallas ISD is taxed by five units for 2025, which add to 2.22671 per $100 before any exemption. Each takes its own homestead exemption off the appraised value first: Dallas ISD the state's $140,000 and a further 10% of its own, and Dallas County, the City, Dallas College and the Parkland Hospital District 20% each. So Dallas County levies 0.2155 per $100 on $375,920 after a $93,980 exemption, $810; City of Dallas levies 0.6988 per $100 on $375,920 after a $93,980 exemption, $2,627; Dallas ISD levies 0.993835 per $100 on $282,910 after a $186,990 exemption, $2,812; Dallas College levies 0.106575 per $100 on $375,920 after a $93,980 exemption, $401; Parkland Hospital District levies 0.212 per $100 on $375,920 after a $93,980 exemption, $797. The five come to $7,446 a year, 1.58% of the price. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $10,463. The appraisal district's own typical homestead is cheaper than the typical sale: its certified median market value for a City of Dallas homestead was $364,530 for the 2025 appraisal year, the value on 1 January 2025 these rates were levied on, and $364,000 for 2026. On $364,530 the same five units come to $5,465, 1.50%, lower because the school district's flat exemption is a larger share of a cheaper house. These are the 2025 rates, the bills due by 31 January 2026. The appraisal district's 2026 table was still its estimate of 4 March 2026 when these figures were retrieved, so the calculators stay on 2025 until the five units' 2026 rates are published. Houston: About 1.33% of value for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $330,000 Greater Houston median single-family sale price. A house in the City of Houston and Houston ISD, in Harris County, is taxed by eight units for 2025, which add to 2.12522 per $100 before any exemption. Each takes its own homestead exemption off the appraised value first: Houston ISD the state's $140,000 and a further 20% of its own, Houston City College 17%, and Harris County, the Flood Control District, the Port of Houston Authority, the Hospital District, the Department of Education and the City 20% each. So Harris County levies 0.38096 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $1,006; Harris County Flood Control District levies 0.04966 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $131; Port of Houston Authority levies 0.0059 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $16; Harris County Hospital District levies 0.18761 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $495; Harris County Department of Education levies 0.004798 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $13; City of Houston levies 0.51919 per $100 on $264,000 after a $66,000 exemption, $1,371; Houston ISD levies 0.8783 per $100 on $124,000 after a $206,000 exemption, $1,089; Houston City College levies 0.098802 per $100 on $273,900 after a $56,100 exemption, $271. The eight come to $4,391 a year, 1.33% of the price. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $7,013. The median is the region's, and a typical home inside the city is cheaper: on $261,740, Zillow's August 2026 value for a typical City of Houston home, the same eight units come to $3,228, 1.23%, lower because the school district's flat exemption is a larger share of a cheaper house. These are the 2025 rates, the bills due by 31 January 2026. When these figures were retrieved the Harris County Tax Office's table already listed 2026 rates for the county, the Flood Control District, the Hospital District and the Port, but not yet for the City, Houston ISD or the college, so the calculators stay on 2025 until all eight are published.
How safe each city is, by the numbers it publishes
Police-reported figures for the most recent year each force or statistics agency has released. Rates describe a whole city or metro area, and the spread between neighbourhoods inside one city is usually wider than the gap between the two cities.
| Measure | Dallas | Houston | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crime Severity Index Statistics Canada's weighted index for the metropolitan area, where 100 is Canada in 2006. American cities have no equivalent series. | Not published | Not published | Not directly comparable |
| Violent crime per 100,000 | 577 (2025) | 890 (2025) | Dallas |
| Property crime per 100,000 | 3,081 (2025) | 3,854 (2025) | Dallas |
| Homicides Counts, not rates, and a single year in a small city moves a long way on chance alone. What each figure covers is under the table. | 140 (2025) | 270 (2025) | Not directly comparable |
On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in Dallas went from 11,181 in 2021 to 10,255 in 2022, 9,025 in 2023, 8,747 in 2024 and 7,674 in 2025, a 12% drop in the last year and 31% in four, and property offenses from 46,991 to 49,224, a peak of 52,641 in 2023, then 45,106 and 40,962, 22% below the peak. Motor vehicle theft drove most of that swing: 11,818 in 2021, 18,457 in 2023 and 11,162 in 2025. In 2025 the CDE shows aggravated assaults down 12% (5,826 to 5,144), robberies down 10% (2,235 to 2,020), rapes down 27% (505 to 370) and murders down 23% (181 to 140). On its own definitions DPD reported violent crime down 12%, robberies down 10%, aggravated assaults down 12% and sexual assaults down 13%. The 2025 CDE counts were read on 27 September 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.
What the rates cover: Computed: 7,674 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Dallas Police Department (ORI TXDPD0000) in calendar 2025, divided by the 1,329,491 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 1,331,217 the rate is 576. DPD does not publish a total on this definition. The violent crime its Violent Crime Reduction Plan tracks is murder, robbery and aggravated assault, with family-violence and other aggravated assaults counted separately and rape left out. Its public incident dataset on Dallas OpenData, which the city describes as a research copy rather than the authoritative count, lists only 57 murder incidents and 12 family-violence aggravated assault incidents for 2025, so it cannot rebuild either total.
Homicides: 140 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, against 181 in 2024, about 10.5 per 100,000 on the city population. DPD's own year-end count was 141 homicides against 184 in 2024, a 23% drop (CBS Texas, February 2026); nothing fetched explains the gaps of one and three cases between the two series. The high point in the CDE series since 2021 is 244, in 2023.
On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in Houston went from 28,850 in 2021 to 26,383 in 2022, 25,517 in 2023, 26,758 in 2024 and 21,345 in 2025, a 20% drop in the last year and 26% in four, and property offenses from 97,068 to a peak of 105,522 in 2022, then 104,829, 100,302 and 92,382, 12% below the peak. Motor vehicle theft rose from 15,694 in 2021 to 20,085 in 2023 and fell to 12,516 in 2025. In 2025 the CDE shows aggravated assaults down 19% (18,341 to 14,839), robberies down 24% (6,359 to 4,859), rapes down 20% (1,729 to 1,377) and murders down 18% (329 to 270). HPD's own year-end counts show the same direction: homicides down from 331 to 272, robberies from 6,438 to 4,987 and aggravated assaults from 18,590 to 15,378 (Major Cities Chiefs Association survey, as reported by the Houston Chronicle). The 2025 CDE counts were read on 30 September 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.
What the rates cover: Computed: 21,345 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Houston Police Department (ORI TXHPD0000) in calendar 2025, divided by the 2,397,315 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 2,413,559 the rate is 884. HPD's year-end figures as reported to the Major Cities Chiefs Association and quoted by the Houston Chronicle run slightly higher than the CDE's: 272 homicides, 4,987 robberies and 15,378 aggravated assaults, against 270, 4,859 and 14,839. The Chronicle did not give HPD's rape count, so HPD's own total on the FBI definition could not be rebuilt.
Homicides: 270 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, against 329 in 2024, about 11.3 per 100,000 on the city population. HPD's own year-end count, obtained by the Houston Chronicle through an open records request, was 272 against 331 in 2024, a 17% drop; nothing fetched explains the gap of two cases in each year between the two series. The high point in the CDE series since 2021 is 474, in 2021.
Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house
| Measure | Dallas | Houston | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| January mean | 8.8 °C | 12.1 °C | Not directly comparable |
| July mean | 30.7 °C | 29.5 °C | Not directly comparable |
| Precipitation a year | 973 mm | 1,317 mm | Not directly comparable |
| Snowfall a year | 4 cm | 0 cm | Not directly comparable |
| Sunshine a year | 2,850 hours | 2,578 hours | Dallas |
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Dallas Love Field (station USW00013960), the city's own climate station about 6 miles northwest of downtown: January mean 47.8F, July mean 87.3F, annual mean 68.0F, 38.32 in of precipitation, 1.7 in of snow. July and August tie as the warmest months at 87.3F, with mean highs of 96.9F and 97.1F, and January's mean low is 37.9F. October (4.79 in) and May (4.57 in) are the wettest months and July (1.71 in) the driest, and most of the snow falls in February (0.9 in). The normals count 107.5 days a year at 90F or above, 22.4 at 100F or above and 23.1 nights at or below freezing. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (USW00003927), where the National Weather Service keeps the metro's official record, averages 46.3F in January and 85.7F in July with 37.01 in of rain and 1.6 in of snow, 20.3 days at 100F or above and 29.2 nights at or below freezing. Converted here to 8.8 C, 30.7 C, 973 mm and 4.3 cm. That July mean is the warmest of any city this site compares, 1.5F (0.8 C) above Austin's at Camp Mabry. Sunshine hours are the older 1961-1990 NCDC means (2,850 hours, 61% of possible), since the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.
Hazards: Heat is the constant. The normals give Love Field 22.4 days a year at or above 100F (37.8 C); its record since 1939 is 73 such days in 2011, including 40 in a row from 2 July to 10 August, and its highest reading is 112F (44.4 C), on 26 and 27 June 1980 and again on 22 July 2018. At DFW Airport the record is 71 days in 2011 and the longest run 42, from 23 June to 3 August 1980, when the airport reached 113F (45.0 C). The summer of 2026 is among the hottest on record: by 22 September Love Field had 54 days at 100F or above, fourth in its record, and DFW 52, tied for fifth, 27 of them in August. Hail is the costly routine hazard. NOAA's billion-dollar disaster list counts a North Texas hailstorm on 23 and 24 March 2016 at $2.06 billion in 2016 dollars, and on 11 April 2016 a supercell dropped hailstones up to 5.25 in (13.3 cm), the record for the NWS Fort Worth area, and hit 80% of the homes in Wylie, northeast of the city; Cotality counted more than 235,000 Texas homes hit by damaging hail in 2025, far more than in any other state. Tornadoes reach the city itself. On 20 October 2019 an EF3 with winds near 140 mph (225 km/h) tracked 15.76 miles (25.4 km) from near I-35E and Walnut Hill Lane through Preston Hollow to US 75 and on into Richardson, damaging a high school, a middle school and an elementary school, destroying about 118 structures and doing $1.55 billion of damage without a death; on 26 December 2015 an EF4 killed 10 people in Sunnyvale, Garland and Rowlett in eastern Dallas County. The Trinity River passes downtown between 23 miles (37 km) of levees 29 to 32 ft (8.8 to 9.8 m) high, completed in 1932 and upgraded by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s. The river's record crest at Dallas, 52.6 ft (16.0 m), came in the flood of May 1908, before them; the highest since was 47.1 ft (14.4 m) in May 1990, and by November 2023 the Corps had raised the West levee to carry 277,000 cubic feet (7,844 cubic meters) a second, with the East levee still to do. Flash floods on the creeks are the more frequent danger: on 21 and 22 August 2022, 9.19 in (233 mm) fell at DFW Airport in 24 hours, second only to 9.57 in (243 mm) in September 1932, 9.14 in (232 mm) fell at Love Field and 15.16 in (385 mm) at a gauge on White Rock Creek at Scyene Road, and at least one person died. Cold is rare and badly handled when it comes. Winter Storm Uri left 5.3 in (13.5 cm) of snow at Love Field from 14 to 17 February 2021 and a low of 2F (-16.7 C) on the 16th, matched there only in January 1949 and beaten only in January 1940 (0F, -17.8 C) and December 1989 (1F, -17.2 C); DFW Airport fell to -2F (-18.9 C), the lowest in its record since 1953. ERCOT cut power across the state grid from 15 to 18 February and about 4.5 million customers lost it at the worst; Texas counted 246 deaths from the storm, 22 of them in Dallas County. In January 2026 Winter Storm Fern brought 2.4 in (6.1 cm) of snow and sleet to DFW Airport and lows of 13F (-10.6 C), and the grid held. Drought is the slow hazard. The seven water supply lakes the Texas Water Development Board counts for the Dallas area stood at 86.5% of conservation capacity on 27 September 2026, down from 98.7% at the end of June; in the 2011 to 2015 drought they fell to 62.7% before the rains of 2015 filled them. Dallas has capped lawn watering at twice a week since April 2012.
NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport (station USW00012960), inside the city about 23 miles north of downtown and the station where the National Weather Service keeps Houston's official record: January mean 53.8F, July mean 85.1F, annual mean 70.5F, 51.84 in of precipitation, 0.1 in of snow. August is the warmest month by a tenth of a degree at 85.2F, with a mean high of 94.9F; July's mean high is 94.5F and January's mean low is 43.7F. June (6.00 in) and October (5.46 in) are the wettest months and February (2.97 in) the driest, and rain is spread through the year with no dry season. The normals count 111.3 days a year at 90F or above, 7.0 at 100F or above and 10.1 nights at or below freezing. William P. Hobby Airport (USW00012918), about 7 miles southeast of downtown and nearer the Gulf, averages 55.0F in January and 84.8F in July with 55.62 in of rain, 2.9 days at 100F or above and 4.2 nights at or below freezing; its normals give no snowfall. Converted here to 12.1 C, 29.5 C, 1,317 mm and 0.3 cm. That precipitation is the most of any Texas city this site compares, 344 mm more than Dallas's at Love Field. Sunshine hours are the older 1961-1990 NCDC means (2,578 hours, 59% of possible, and 90 clear days), since the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.
Hazards: Flooding is the defining hazard, from hurricanes, tropical storms and stalled rain alike. Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Port Aransas as a category 4 storm on 25 August 2017 and then stalled inland, and over four days 26 to 47 in (660 to 1,204 mm) of rain fell across Harris County, a maximum of 47.4 in at Clear Creek and I-45 and an average of 33.7 in (856 mm) over the county's 1,777 square miles, about 1 trillion gallons. The Harris County Flood Control District counted 154,170 homes flooded in the county, 68% of them outside the 100-year floodplain and 64% without flood insurance, 60,049 people rescued by government crews and 36 flood deaths in the county; statewide Harvey killed 68 people directly, the most from a landfalling hurricane in Texas since 1919. Bush Intercontinental recorded 31.26 in (794 mm) from 25 to 29 August, including 16.07 in (408 mm) on the 27th, the wettest day in its record since 1969, and Hobby 37.01 in (940 mm). NOAA puts Harvey's cost at $125 billion ($160 billion in 2024 dollars, second only to Katrina on its list). Harvey came after others: Tropical Storm Allison in June 2001 ($8.5 billion, 43 deaths), Hurricane Ike in September 2008 ($30.0 billion, 112 deaths), the Tax Day flood of 17 and 18 April 2016 ($2.7 billion, 8 deaths, with 9.92 in at Bush Intercontinental on the 18th) and Tropical Storm Imelda in September 2019 ($5.0 billion, 5 deaths). Wind and the power grid are the second hazard. On 16 May 2024 a derecho cut power to more than 900,000 customers in the Houston area and killed 8 people, and on 8 July 2024 Hurricane Beryl came ashore near Matagorda as a category 1 storm with 80 kt (92 mph) winds and crossed the western side of the metro, gusting to 72 kt (83 mph) at Bush Intercontinental and dropping 14.88 in (378 mm) at a gauge in western Houston. More than 2.2 million customers in the region lost power that afternoon (the National Hurricane Center cites media reports of 2.7 million across southeastern Texas), many of them for days in July heat. The NHC counted 11 direct deaths in Texas and 34 indirect ones, 14 of them from heat as the power stayed off, and NOAA puts the damage at $7.2 billion. Heat is the constant. The normals give only 7.0 days a year at or above 100F (37.8 C), far fewer than Dallas's 22.4, but 111.3 at or above 90F. Bush Intercontinental's record is 46 days of 100F in 2011, including 24 in a row from 1 to 24 August, and 45 in 2023, and its highest reading is 109F (42.8 C), on 4 September 2000, 27 August 2011 and 24 and 27 August 2023; 2026 had 9 such days through 21 September. Cold is rare and badly handled. Winter Storm Uri brought 1.0 in (2.5 cm) of snow to Bush Intercontinental on 15 February 2021 and a low of 13F (-10.6 C) on the 16th, above the station's record of 7F (-13.9 C) on 23 December 1989. ERCOT cut power across the state grid from 15 to 18 February and about 4.5 million customers lost it at the worst; Texas counted 246 deaths from the storm, 43 of them in Harris County, more than in any other county. On 20 and 21 January 2025 a Gulf Coast snowstorm left 1.4 in (3.6 cm) at the airport and a low of 20F (-6.7 C) on the 22nd.
What people earn and what the government takes
| Measure | Dallas | Houston | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $74,323 USD (2024) | $64,361 USD (2024) | Dallas |
| Unemployment rate | 4.2% (July 2026) | 5.1% (July 2026) | Dallas |
| Sales tax | 8.25% | 8.25% | Even |
| Top marginal income tax Federal plus provincial or state. The American figure leaves out payroll taxes and the cost of health insurance, both of which a Canadian household covers through the tax it pays here. | 37% | 37% | Even |
| Income tax on $100,000, single filer Dallas and Houston sit under one province's or state's income tax, so the two cells describe the same tax and any difference between them is one of method rather than of tax. The two cells agree to the dollar here. The Advantage column is Even for that reason, and the essay below says the same thing. | $13,449 USD | $13,449 USD | Even |
BLS counted 4,353,400 nonfarm jobs in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA in July 2026 (not seasonally adjusted), up 54,000 or 1.3% on the year. Professional and business services (+3.0%, to 805,200) and leisure and hospitality (+3.0%) grew fastest, then mining, logging and construction and education and health services (both +2.0%), while information (-2.8%), financial activities (-1.0%) and manufacturing (-0.7%) shrank. Trade, transportation and utilities is the largest sector at 895,000 jobs, and government employs 465,400. The seasonally adjusted series (FRED DALL148NA) was 4,363,400 in August 2026, 1.1% above August 2025. Average weekly wages across the metro were $1,785 in the first quarter of 2026 against $1,654 nationally. The Dallas Regional Chamber counts 21 Fortune 500 headquarters in the region as of 2025 and 44 in the Fortune 1000, among them AT&T, Texas Instruments, American Airlines, Kimberly-Clark, Toyota Motor North America and McKesson.
Main sectors: Trade, transportation and utilities, the metro's largest sector (DFW Airport, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, BNSF Railway), Corporate headquarters and professional and business services (AT&T, Texas Instruments, McKesson, Kimberly-Clark, Toyota Motor North America), Financial activities (the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Charles Schwab, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America), Health care and education (Baylor Scott & White Health, Texas Health Resources, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Children's Health), Aerospace and advanced manufacturing (Lockheed Martin, Bell Textron, Raytheon, Texas Instruments).
Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Texas's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 1.40%, and school districts must exempt $140,000 of a homestead's value from their tax. The City of Dallas's own rate for the fiscal year that starts on 1 October 2026 is 69.78 cents per $100 of taxable value, down from 69.88 cents, the eleventh cut in a row, in a $5.66 billion budget. Proposition U, a charter amendment Dallas voters approved in November 2024, requires the council to put at least half of each year's revenue growth into the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, with any remainder of that half going to police pay and to a force of at least 4,000 officers; the budget adopted in September 2026 funds 3,651 officers by the end of September 2027 and 3,800 a year later. The county, school district and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.
BLS counted 3,495,300 nonfarm jobs in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 44,700 or 1.3% on the year. Construction grew fastest (+5.5%, to 269,000), then professional and business services (+2.6%, to 581,300) and government (+1.9%), with education and health services and leisure and hospitality both up 1.3%, while information (-5.9%), financial activities (-1.2%), mining and logging (-0.5%, to 73,300) and manufacturing (-0.2%, to 240,400) shrank. Trade, transportation and utilities is the largest sector at 695,600 jobs, unchanged on the year. The seasonally adjusted series (SMS48264200000000001) was 3,510,100 in August 2026, 1.2% above August 2025. The Greater Houston Partnership counts 27 Fortune 500 headquarters in the region on the 2026 list, tied with Chicago for second among US metros behind New York and ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth's 24, with a 28th due when Expand Energy moves to Spring; ExxonMobil (No. 9) and Chevron (No. 21) lead them. Port Houston calls the Houston Ship Channel complex the nation's largest port for waterborne tonnage (309.5 million tons in 2023, USACE) and the fifth-ranked US container port by TEUs.
Main sectors: Energy: oil and gas producers, refiners, pipelines and oilfield services (ExxonMobil, Chevron, Phillips 66, ConocoPhillips, Enterprise Products Partners, Baker Hughes, Halliburton, Cheniere Energy), Trade, transportation and utilities, the metro's largest sector (the Port of Houston, the nation's largest port by waterborne tonnage; Sysco; United Airlines at Bush Intercontinental; CenterPoint Energy, NRG Energy), Professional and business services, including engineering and construction (KBR, Quanta Services, Comfort Systems USA, Waste Management), Health care and life sciences (the Texas Medical Center, Memorial Hermann, Houston Methodist, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas Children's Hospital), Petrochemicals and advanced manufacturing along the Houston Ship Channel (Westlake, NOV).
Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Texas's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 1.40%, and school districts must exempt $140,000 of a homestead's value from their tax. The City of Houston's own rate for tax year 2025 is 51.919 cents per $100 of taxable value, left unchanged by an 11-3 council vote on 15 October 2025 although the city controller warned it would open a $53 million gap in the $7 billion fiscal 2026 budget; the budget committee chair, who voted against, said there was still room under both the state's and the city's own revenue caps. On 10 June 2026 the council passed a $7.5 billion budget for fiscal 2027 by 15 to 1, closing a projected deficit of more than $200 million with no increase in the property tax rate and a new $5 monthly solid waste fee on residential water bills. The rate for tax year 2026 had not been published in anything fetched. The county, school district, METRO and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.
Whether you need a car
| Measure | Dallas | Houston | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| System | DART buses (nearly 700 vehicles), four light rail lines on 93 miles of track, the 26-mile Silver Line commuter rail from Plano to DFW Airport (opened October 2025), the Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth run with Trinity Metro, the Dallas Streetcar and GoLink on-demand zones | METRO buses (more than 80 local routes plus Park & Ride commuter buses on the HOV and HOT lanes), three METRORail light rail lines on 22.7 miles of track (the Red Line, opened in 2004, and the Green and Purple lines, opened in 2015), the Silver Line bus rapid transit in Uptown, METRO curb2curb on-demand service and METROLift paratransit, across a service area of about 1,300 square miles | Not directly comparable |
| Commute by public transit | 2.0% (2024) | 3.4% (2024) | Houston |
| Walk or cycle to work | 2.5% (2024) | 2.9% (2024) | Houston |
| Airport | Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), 85,660,127 passengers in 2025, 2.5% fewer than 2024's 87,817,864, per the airport's December 2025 traffic report; 12.65 million of them were international and American Airlines carried 82.6%. ACI World ranked it the fourth-busiest airport in the world by passengers in 2025 and third by aircraft movements. Dallas Love Field (DAL), about 6 miles northwest of downtown and the birthplace and headquarters of Southwest Airlines, handled 16,899,203 passengers in 2025, 5.5% fewer than in 2024 (FAA figures as cited by Wikipedia; the airport's website refused the fetcher). | George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), about 23 miles north of downtown and a hub for United Airlines, handled 48,131,213 passengers in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the 48.4 million of 2024 (FAA figures as cited by Wikipedia; Houston Airports gave no per-airport total for 2025 in anything fetched), and a record 12.4 million international passengers, 2.5% more than in 2024. William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), about 7 miles southeast of downtown and an operating base for Southwest Airlines, handled 13,943,759, 4.5% fewer than 2024's 14.6 million; it kept Skytrax's 5-star rating for a fifth year, the only one in North America. Houston Airports puts the two together at 62 million passengers in 2025, below the record 63.1 million of 2024, and a record 562,809 metric tons of air cargo. | Not directly comparable |
DART carried 52,823,800 unlinked trips in 2025, 28,151,100 of them by bus and 21,611,600 on light rail, and about 157,300 a weekday in the second quarter of 2026, 65,300 of them on light rail (APTA ridership reports, as cited by Wikipedia; APTA's PDFs refused the fetcher). DART's own figure is more than 171,000 passengers a day across a 700-square-mile, 12-city service area. The Trinity Railway Express, which DART runs with Fort Worth's Trinity Metro, carried 1,337,600 trips in 2025 (APTA, same source). The Silver Line opened on 25 October 2025 through Plano, Richardson, Dallas, Addison, Carrollton, Coppell and Grapevine to DFW Airport, every 30 minutes at weekday peaks and hourly otherwise. DART is paid for by a 1% sales tax in its member cities, and the suburbs have pushed back on what they pay: Plano, Irving and Farmers Branch canceled withdrawal elections set for May 2026 after agreements that return part of their sales tax over six years for local transportation projects, Addison and University Park voted to stay, and Highland Park voted by 70% to leave, with service ending on 14 May 2026.
METRO carried 77,996,900 unlinked trips in 2025, 63,315,900 of them by bus and 12,651,100 on light rail, and about 251,800 a weekday in the second quarter of 2026, 37,700 of them on light rail (APTA ridership reports, as cited by Wikipedia; APTA's PDFs refused the fetcher). METRO's own count for fiscal 2025 is 76.3 million boardings on bus and METRORail, 23.3 million riders on its HOV and HOT lanes and 1.9 million METROLift trips. The authority serves the City of Houston, much of unincorporated Harris County and 14 smaller cities, and is paid for by a 1% sales tax that voters created in 1978. Expansion has stalled: voters approved the METRONext plan in November 2019, including 16 miles of light rail extensions and 75 miles of bus rapid transit, but in June 2024 METRO indefinitely postponed the University Line, once the plan's cornerstone, and in February 2025 it adopted METRONow, which puts safety, cleanliness and reliability of the existing service first.
Health care, schools and what each city is like
Health care
Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF, August 2026). It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024: 16.7%, or 5,152,427 of 30,799,312 people, against 8.2% nationally and 12.0% in Georgia, the next highest, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates. The City of Dallas's rate was 22.7% (297,684 of 1,313,770), Dallas County's 21.9% and the metro's 16.2%. Parkland Memorial Hospital, licensed for 983 beds, is Dallas County's only public hospital and UT Southwestern's primary teaching hospital; it became the first certified Level I trauma center in Texas in 1983 and runs a burn center. UT Southwestern Medical Center, whose faculty have received six Nobel Prizes, runs William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital in the Southwestern Medical District, and more than half the doctors practicing in Dallas trained there at least in part. Baylor University Medical Center, which opened in 1903 and is now the North Texas flagship of Baylor Scott & White Health, has 914 beds and a Level I trauma center that Baylor Scott & White describes as one of only three adult trauma centers in Dallas. Children's Health and UT Southwestern broke ground in October 2024 on a $5 billion pediatric campus with 552 beds to replace Children's Medical Center Dallas, projected to open in 2031. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.
Education
Dallas ISD, the second-largest school district in Texas, opened the 2026-27 year on 11 August with about 132,000 students, down from about 134,300 a year earlier (KERA). Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde blamed federal immigration policy in part. KERA adds that charter schools and the state's new education savings accounts may account for some of the loss; more than 2,800 students in the district had qualified for the accounts, which help pay private school tuition, on the Comptroller's latest count. The district made pre-kindergarten free for all 3- and 4-year-olds this year and enrolled about 11,000 children in it, and the Texas Education Agency rated the district B for 2025. Southern Methodist University (12,544 students in fall 2025) is in University Park, a separate town north of downtown, the University of Texas at Dallas is in Richardson, and Dallas College runs seven campuses in Dallas County.
Living there
Dallas is the corporate and financial center of the fourth-largest metro in the country, and the metro is growing around the city rather than inside it. The Dallas-Fort Worth area added 123,557 people in 2024-25, more than any metro but Houston, while the city lost 1,808 and Dallas County lost 46,226 more residents to the rest of the country than it gained, so newcomers settle in Collin, Denton and Kaufman counties. The city has 93 miles of DART light rail and, since October 2025, a commuter line to DFW Airport, yet 68.6% of its workers drive alone and 2.0% take transit. Summer is the hard season: the July mean at Love Field is 87.3F, the warmest of any city this site compares, and the station had 54 days at 100F or more by late September 2026. Hail and tornadoes are the costly weather. Texas takes no income tax, and 22.7% of the city's residents have no health insurance. The open question is whether the city can hold up its end as the region spreads outward: three suburbs won back part of the sales tax they pay DART and a fourth voted to leave, voters wrote a minimum of 4,000 police officers into the charter in 2024 and the adopted budget plans for 3,800 by September 2028, and Dallas ISD began 2026-27 with about 2,300 fewer students than the year before.
Health care
Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF, August 2026). It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024: 16.7%, or 5,152,427 of 30,799,312 people, against 8.2% nationally and 12.0% in Georgia, the next highest, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates. The City of Houston's rate was 23.3% (553,576 of 2,370,907), Harris County's 20.8% and the metro's 18.4%. The Texas Medical Center, south of downtown, calls itself the largest medical complex in the world: by its own count 10,000 patient beds, more than 120,000 employees, 10 million patient encounters and 750,000 emergency visits a year, and among its members the world's largest children's hospital and largest cancer hospital (Texas Children's and MD Anderson). Harris Health's Ben Taub Hospital in the medical center, licensed for 402 beds, is the county's public Level I trauma center and treats more than 80,000 emergency patients a year; in May 2024 Harris Health broke ground on a $1.6 billion, 12-story hospital on its Lyndon B. Johnson campus in northeast Houston, due to open in late 2028 as the first Level I trauma center in the county outside the medical center. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.
Education
Houston ISD, the largest school district in Texas, has been run by a state-appointed board and superintendent, Mike Miles, since the Texas Education Agency took it over in 2023. It counted 168,810 students on its official snapshot of 31 October 2025, down 4.5% from 176,727 a year earlier, and just over 155,600 on 4 September 2026, nearly 10,000 fewer than in September 2025, and it is cutting staff and campus budgets as a result (Houston Chronicle). The Texas Tribune counts 21,000 students lost since the takeover began, a faster decline than any of its urban peers, and about $190 million in state funding with them. Under Miles the number of F-rated campuses fell from 56 to five, but voters rejected a $4.4 billion bond in 2024, the largest Texas school bond ever to fail, and in August 2026 Miles said the official end of the takeover may come at the end of the 2026-27 year. The University of Houston (48,950 students in fall 2025) and Rice University (8,880 in fall 2024) are both inside the city, and Houston Community College renamed itself Houston City College in 2025.
Living there
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the country and the energy capital of its fifth-largest metro, which added 126,720 people in 2024-25, more than any other. It spreads into four counties with 22.7 miles of light rail near the core, and 68.7% of its workers drive alone, though its 3.4% transit share is the highest of the Texas cities this site compares. Water is its hazard: Harvey flooded 154,170 homes in Harris County in 2017, most of them outside the mapped floodplain, and Beryl left more than two million customers without power in July heat in 2024. Summer is long and humid rather than extreme, with far fewer 100F days than Dallas but 111 days a year at 90F or above and 1,317 mm of rain. Texas takes no income tax, 23.3% of the city's residents have no health insurance, and the Texas Medical Center, the largest in the world by its own count, sits a few miles south of downtown. The open questions are fiscal and civic: the council held the property tax rate flat in October 2025 against its controller's warning and passed a fiscal 2027 budget that closes a deficit of more than $200 million without raising it, METRO has shelved the University Line that was once the cornerstone of its expansion plan, and Houston ISD, under state control since 2023, began 2026-27 with nearly 10,000 fewer students than the year before.
Where each city wins, and where it loses
Both cities are in Texas and both were priced at Freddie Mac's 7.03% rate for 24 September 2026, so the rate and the state's rules are the same on both sides: no transfer or mortgage tax, no rent control, and for a homestead a $140,000 school exemption and a 10% annual cap on appraised value. The prices are different measures. Dallas's is the NTREIS median of single-family houses sold in the city, $469,900 in August 2026, 6.0% below a year earlier. Houston's is the Houston Association of Realtors' single-family median for Greater Houston, $330,000, 1.5% below, a regional figure because HAR's city breakdown could not be retrieved. Zillow's index, which models every home in each city, puts Dallas at $305,765 and Houston at $261,740 in August, so the order holds on a measure that is the same in both. At 20% down, Dallas's $375,920 loan costs about $2,509 a month and Houston's $264,000 loan about $1,762. Property tax is $7,448 a year in Dallas and $4,391 in Houston with a homestead, and insurance is budgeted at $400 and $450 a month, both set by weather: hail in North Texas, wind on the Gulf, and no flood policy in Houston's. The three lines come to about $3,529 and $2,578, roughly 57% and 48% of each city's 2024 median household income; of the $951 gap about $747 is the mortgage and $255 the property tax, and Houston's insurance takes back $50. Rents are on different series, RentCafe's August averages for Dallas and Apartment List's September medians for Houston, because RentCafe refused the request: a one-bedroom at $1,416 against $1,120, a two-bedroom $1,853 against $1,327. Zillow's observed rent index, the same measure in both, was $1,591 in Dallas and $1,542 in Houston in August.
The definitions match: both cities' figures are the FBI's summarized counts for 2025, divided by Census Vintage 2025 populations and read on 27 and 30 September 2026. Houston is the higher on every line. Its 21,345 violent offenses come to 890 per 100,000 against Dallas's 577 on 7,674, and its 92,382 property offenses to 3,854 against 3,081. Homicide is the closest line: 270 in Houston, about 11.3 per 100,000, and 140 in Dallas, about 10.5. Each police department's own count is a little higher, 272 on HPD's year-end figure and 141 on DPD's, against 331 and 184 in 2024. Both are improving at about the same pace. Violent offenses dropped 20% in Houston in 2025 and 26% in four years, and 12% in Dallas and 31% in four years. Motor vehicle theft rose and fell in both: from 20,085 in 2023 to 12,516 in Houston, and from 18,457 to 11,162 in Dallas. Both sets of counts come from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.
Dallas has the hotter, drier summer and the colder winter; Houston the wetter, milder year. July averages 30.7 C at Love Field, the warmest July mean of the cities this site compares, against 29.5 C at Bush Intercontinental, and January 8.8 C against 12.1 C, with 23.1 nights at or below freezing against 10.1. Dallas's normals count 22.4 days a year at or above 37.8 C (100F) and Houston's 7.0, while Houston counts slightly more at 90F or above, 111.3 against 107.5, in wetter air. Houston gets 1,317 mm of rain, 344 mm more than Dallas's 973 mm, and on the older 1961-1990 series less sun, 2,578 hours against 2,850. The hazards differ in kind. Dallas's are hail, with stones up to 5.25 in (13.3 cm) in April 2016, and tornadoes such as the October 2019 EF3 through Preston Hollow. Houston's are water and wind off the Gulf: Hurricane Harvey flooded 154,170 homes in Harris County in 2017, 68% of them outside the 100-year floodplain, and Beryl in July 2024 left more than 2.2 million customers in the region without power. Winter Storm Uri hit both in February 2021, with 2F (-16.7 C) at Love Field and 13F (-10.6 C) at Bush Intercontinental, and Texas counted 43 of its 246 deaths in Harris County and 22 in Dallas County.
These are two big labor markets on the same footing. BLS counted 4,353,400 nonfarm jobs around Dallas-Fort Worth in July 2026 and 3,495,300 around Houston in August, each 1.3% more than a year earlier. Unemployment, not seasonally adjusted, was 4.6% in Dallas-Fort Worth and 5.1% around Houston in July, against 4.4% nationally. Dallas's largest sector is trade, transportation and utilities at 895,000 jobs, around DFW Airport, American Airlines and BNSF, with corporate headquarters, finance and aerospace behind it; Houston's is the same sector at 695,600, around the Port of Houston, which calls itself the country's largest by waterborne tonnage, with energy, engineering and the Texas Medical Center behind it. The headquarters counts come from different chambers. The Dallas Regional Chamber counts 21 Fortune 500 headquarters in its region for 2025, and the Greater Houston Partnership 27 in Houston's for 2026, second among US metros and ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth. Dallas's average weekly wage was $1,785 in the first quarter of 2026; Houston's profile carries no wage figure. City median household income was $74,323 in Dallas and $64,361 in Houston in 2024, and the metros' $92,733 and $81,417. The state's taxes are shared: no income tax, so $100,000 pays $13,449 in both, and 8.25% sales tax. The property tax stacks are close. Dallas's five units add to 2.22671 per $100 and Houston's eight to 2.12522, and Houston's units take 20% off a homestead almost across the board, so the same house pays a little less there: $4,391 against $4,815 on $330,000, and about $6,773 against $7,448 on $469,900.
Neither is a transit city, and Houston's system carries more on less track. In 2024, 3.4% of Houston workers took transit and 2.9% walked or cycled, against 2.0% and 2.5% in Dallas, and the two drove alone at the same rate, 68.7% and 68.6%; 13.5% of Dallas workers worked from home against 10.9%. METRO carried 77,996,900 trips in 2025, 12,651,100 of them on 22.7 miles of light rail, and DART 52,823,800, 21,611,600 of them on 93 miles, plus the Silver Line to DFW Airport since October 2025. Both are paid for by a 1% sales tax, and both are under strain. Plano, Irving and Farmers Branch won back part of what they pay DART, and Highland Park voted to leave. METRO postponed the University Line, once the centerpiece of the METRONext plan voters approved in 2019, indefinitely in June 2024. The airports are both hubs, with more flights out of Dallas. DFW handled 85,660,127 passengers in 2025, 82.6% of them on American, and Love Field 16,899,203; Bush Intercontinental, United's hub, handled 48,131,213 and Hobby 13,943,759. International traffic is nearly level, 12.65 million at DFW against a record 12.4 million at Bush Intercontinental.
Coverage is Texas's problem in both cities. The state has not expanded Medicaid and had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%; the City of Dallas's rate was 22.7% and the City of Houston's 23.3%, and their counties' 21.9% and 20.8%. Houston has the Texas Medical Center, by its own count the largest medical complex in the world, with 10,000 patient beds, MD Anderson and Texas Children's, and Harris Health's Ben Taub Hospital, the county's public Level I trauma center; a second public Level I hospital on Harris Health's Lyndon B. Johnson campus is due in late 2028. Dallas has Parkland Memorial Hospital, UT Southwestern's primary teaching hospital and the first certified Level I trauma center in Texas, and Baylor University Medical Center, and a $5 billion Children's Health campus is due in 2031. Neither profile verified a wait time. The two largest school districts in Texas are both shrinking. Houston ISD, run by a state-appointed board since 2023, counted just over 155,600 students on 4 September 2026, nearly 10,000 fewer than a year earlier, and its voters rejected a $4.4 billion bond in 2024. Dallas ISD opened 2026-27 with about 132,000 against about 134,300, made pre-kindergarten free for all 3- and 4-year-olds and was rated B by the state for 2025. The University of Houston and Rice are inside Houston; SMU and UT Dallas sit outside Dallas's city limits.
What people underestimate is how alike the two metros' growth is and how differently the two cities share in it. Houston's metro added 126,720 people in 2024-25, more than any other in the country, and Dallas-Fort Worth 123,557, second. The City of Houston grew 4.2% from 2020 to 2025 and added 11,515 residents in the last year; the City of Dallas grew 1.9% and lost 1,808. In both, the core county lost more residents to the rest of the country than it gained, Harris County 43,377 and Dallas County 46,226, and the newcomers went to Montgomery and Fort Bend, Collin and Denton. So $4,391 and $7,448 are bills for an address inside each city and its own school district. Houston adds two things the figure leaves out. The city has no zoning, and deed restrictions do that work, so the neighborhood's own covenants matter more than they would in Dallas. And newer subdivisions on its edges often pay a municipal utility district, at a median of about 0.54 per $100 in 2025, on top of the eight units. The rates are moving apart: the City of Dallas cut its own for the eleventh year in a row, to 69.78 cents from 1 October 2026, while the City of Houston's has been 51.919 cents since 2023 under a charter cap on its revenue, and Harris County has already listed a 2026 rate of 0.4175 against 0.38096.
Better here
- Violent crime was 577 per 100,000 in 2025 against 890 in Houston on the same FBI counts, and property crime 3,081 against 3,854.
- The metro had 4,353,400 nonfarm jobs in July 2026 against Houston's 3,495,300 in August, and unemployment was 4.6% against 5.1% in July, both not seasonally adjusted.
- City median household income was $74,323 in 2024 against $64,361 in Houston, and the metro's $92,733 against $81,417.
- DFW handled 85,660,127 passengers in 2025 and Love Field another 16,899,203, against 48,131,213 at Bush Intercontinental and 13,943,759 at Hobby.
- DART runs 93 miles of light rail and, since October 2025, the Silver Line to DFW Airport, against METRO's 22.7 miles.
- Rain totals 973 mm a year at Love Field against 1,317 mm in Houston, and Dallas's costly hazards are hail and tornadoes rather than hurricanes off the Gulf.
Worse here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $3,529 a month on the August 2026 median, against $2,578 on Greater Houston's at the same 7.03% rate.
- The five taxing units take $4,815 on a $330,000 homestead where Houston's eight take $4,391, and $7,448 on Dallas's median.
- July averages 30.7 C, the warmest July mean of the cities this site compares, and the normals count 22.4 days a year at or above 37.8 C (100F) against 7.0 in Houston.
- January averages 8.8 C with 23.1 nights a year at or below freezing, against 12.1 C and 10.1 in Houston.
- Home insurance is budgeted at $400 a month because North Texas hail is a routine cost, and tornadoes reach the city itself, as in October 2019.
- The city lost 1,808 residents in 2024-25, while the City of Houston added 11,515.
Choose Dallas if
- you want the lower violent and property crime rates of the two largest Texas cities
- you work in corporate headquarters, finance, logistics or aerospace
- you fly often enough that an airport handling 85,660,127 passengers in 2025 changes how you travel
- you would take 22.4 days a year at 100F and hail for 973 mm of rain and no hurricanes
The Dallas guide · Neighborhoods · Dallas rent vs buy · Dallas mortgage calculator
Better here
- Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,578 a month on Greater Houston's August 2026 median, against $3,529 on Dallas's at the same 7.03% rate.
- The eight taxing units are the lighter stack on the same house: $4,391 a year on $330,000 with a homestead, an effective 1.33%, against $4,815 from Dallas's five.
- The Texas Medical Center, by its own count the largest medical complex in the world, has 10,000 patient beds, with MD Anderson and Texas Children's among its members.
- The Greater Houston Partnership counts 27 Fortune 500 headquarters in the region for 2026, led by ExxonMobil and Chevron, and Port Houston calls itself the country's largest port by waterborne tonnage.
- January averages 12.1 C with 10.1 nights a year at or below freezing, and the normals count 7.0 days at or above 37.8 C (100F) against 22.4 in Dallas.
- In 2024, 3.4% of workers commuted by transit, the highest share of the Texas cities this site compares, and METRO carried 77,996,900 trips in 2025 against DART's 52,823,800.
Worse here
- Violent crime was 890 per 100,000 in 2025 against 577 in Dallas on the same FBI counts, and there were 270 homicides, about 11.3 per 100,000, against 140 at about 10.5.
- The City of Houston's uninsured rate was 23.3% in 2024, against 22.7% in the City of Dallas, in a state that has not expanded Medicaid.
- City median household income was $64,361 in 2024 against $74,323, and unemployment was 5.1% in July 2026 against 4.6%, both not seasonally adjusted.
- Harvey flooded 154,170 homes in Harris County in 2017, 68% of them outside the 100-year floodplain, and the $450 a month insurance budget has no flood policy in it.
- Beryl cut power to more than 2.2 million customers in the region in July 2024, many of them for days in summer heat.
- A municipal utility district, common in newer subdivisions at a median of about 0.54 per $100 in 2025, is not in the $4,391, and the city has no zoning.
Choose Houston if
- you want to own at about $2,578 a month on the region's median rather than $3,529 on Dallas's
- you work in energy, petrochemicals, the port, engineering or at the Texas Medical Center
- you fly United, or fly abroad often enough that 12.4 million international passengers a year at one airport matters
- you would take humidity, 1,317 mm of rain and a hurricane season over 22.4 days a year at 100F
The Houston guide · Neighborhoods · Houston rent vs buy · Houston mortgage calculator
Dallas or Houston, in short
Is Dallas or Houston cheaper to live in?
Houston, to own, and by less against local pay. Both cities were priced at the same 7.03% mortgage rate of 24 September 2026, so the figures net directly, though the prices are different measures. The Dallas single-family median inside the city was $469,900 in August 2026 and HAR's single-family median for all of Greater Houston $330,000; Zillow's index for each city, $305,765 against $261,740, keeps the order. At 20% down the mortgage is about $2,509 against $1,762. Property tax is $7,448 a year against $4,391 with a homestead, and insurance $400 a month against $450, so the three lines come to about $3,529 in Dallas and $2,578 in Houston, roughly 57% and 48% of each city's median household income. Renting is close: Zillow's observed rent index was $1,591 in Dallas and $1,542 in Houston in August. Income tax is nil in both and sales tax 8.25% in both.
Is Dallas or Houston safer?
Dallas, on figures built the same way, though the homicide rates are close. Both are the FBI's summarized counts for 2025 divided by Census estimates, read on 27 and 30 September 2026. Violent offenses ran 577 per 100,000 in Dallas against 890 in Houston, and property offenses 3,081 against 3,854. Homicide was 140 in Dallas, about 10.5 per 100,000, and 270 in Houston, about 11.3; the police departments' own counts were 141 and 272. Both improved in 2025, violent offenses dropping 12% in Dallas and 20% in Houston. Every rate here is a count divided by a Census estimate rather than a published rate, and the counts can still be revised.
Which has the worse weather, Dallas or Houston?
They fail differently. Dallas is hotter and drier: July averages 30.7 C at Love Field against 29.5 C at Bush Intercontinental, with 22.4 days a year at or above 37.8 C (100F) against 7.0, and 973 mm of rain against 1,317 mm. Houston is humid for longer, with 111.3 days a year at 90F or above against 107.5, and milder in winter, 12.1 C in January against 8.8 C. Dallas's costly hazards are hail and tornadoes; Houston's are flooding and hurricanes, from Harvey in 2017, which flooded 154,170 homes in Harris County, to Beryl in 2024, which cut power to more than 2.2 million customers. Home insurance is budgeted at $400 a month in Dallas and $450 in Houston, and in Houston flood insurance is a separate policy on top.
Why does the same house pay less property tax in Houston than in Dallas?
Because Houston's units exempt more of a homestead and levy a little less before they do. The state frame is the same: a $140,000 homestead exemption from the school levy and a 10% annual cap on a homestead's appraised value that starts after purchase. Dallas's five units add to 2.22671 per $100 and Houston's eight to 2.12522. In Houston, Harris County, its Flood Control District, the Port, the Hospital District, the Department of Education and the City each take 20% off, Houston City College 17%, and Houston ISD 20% on top of the state's $140,000; Dallas ISD adds 10% of its own and Dallas's other four units 20%. On the same $330,000 house that comes to $4,391 in Houston and $4,815 in Dallas, and on $469,900 to about $6,773 against $7,448. Without a homestead the two medians would owe $7,013 and $10,463. A Houston address inside a municipal utility district pays that district on top.
Where the figures come from
Housing figures are the ones behind each city's calculators, dated on those pages. The rest are listed here with the date they were retrieved. See the methodology for how facts, estimates and opinion are kept apart.
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in Texas: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, Five-year growth, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Character
- Annual Resident Population Estimates and Components of Change for Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas and Their Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (CBSA-EST2025-ALLDATA) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth, Character
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Dallas Police Department (TXDPD0000): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
- Violent Crime Reduction Plan Update, Public Safety Committee, June 3, 2025 · Dallas Police Department (City of Dallas) · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Crime trend
- Police Incidents (Dallas Police Public Data, RMS incidents from June 1, 2014) · City of Dallas OpenData · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate
- Dallas sees lowest violent crime numbers since 2015 as chief credits new crime strategies · CBS Texas · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00013960 Dallas Love Field (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall, Climate normals, Climate hazards, Character, January 47.8F, July and August 87.3F from the monthly series, and annual mean 68.0F, precipitation 38.32 in, snowfall 1.7 in and the counts of days at 90F and 100F and nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00003927 Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Dallas Love Field (USW00013960), 1939-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character, 73 days at or above 100F in 2011 and 40 in a row from 2 July to 10 August 2011, 54 in 2026 through 22 September, 112F on 26 and 27 June 1980 and 22 July 2018, 5.3 in of snow from 14 to 17 February 2021, 2F on 16 February 2021, 31 January 1949, 1F on 23 December 1989 and 0F on 23 January 1940, 13F on 25 January 2026
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (USW00003927), 1953-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 113F on 26 and 27 June 1980, -2F on 16 February 2021, 2.4 in of snow and sleet on 24 and 25 January 2026
- Dallas/Fort Worth: Annual and Consecutive 100 Degree Days (last updated 22 September 2026) · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved Supports: Sunshine hours, Climate normals
- Weather and Climate Billion-Dollar Disasters to affect the U.S. from 1980-2024 (events list) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- April 11th 2016 Hail Storm · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Cotality 2026 Report: Hail risk now rivals major hurricanes (2026 Severe Convective Storm Risk Report) · Cotality · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- North Texas Tornadoes, October 20, 2019 · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- 2019 North Dallas tornado (path length, structures destroyed, damage, casualties) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- December 26, 2015 Tornado Outbreak · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Dallas Levee System · City of Dallas, Trinity River Corridor Project · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Trinity River at Dallas (DALT2), historic crests · NOAA National Water Prediction Service · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Milestone Achievement for Dallas Floodway Project: Providing Flood Risk Management to Communities · US Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District (DVIDS) · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Wettest 24 hours in nearly a century for Dallas-Fort Worth · Yale Climate Connections · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- February 2021 Winter Storm-Related Deaths, Texas (mortality surveillance report) · Texas Department of State Health Services · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- The Timeline and Events of the February 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts · The University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- How the Texas power grid is holding up during the winter storm · CBS Texas · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Energy Secretary Issues Emergency Order to Secure Texas Grid Amid Winter Storm Fern · US Department of Energy · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Dallas Area Reservoirs (daily storage, percent full) · Texas Water Development Board, Water Data for Texas · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Frequently Asked Questions (watering schedule) and City of Dallas Water Conservation Ordinance · Dallas Water Utilities, Save Dallas Water · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for Dallas city and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for the 50 states, DC, the US, Dallas County, Dallas city and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care, Character
- Unemployment Rate in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (MSA), DALL148UR and DALL148URN · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS LAUS data) · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- All Employees: Total Nonfarm in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (MSA), DALL148NA · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS CES data) · retrieved Supports: Labour market
- Dallas-Fort Worth Area Economic Summary · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate, Main sectors, Labour market
- Dallas Regional Economic Development Guide 2026: Major Companies and Headquarters · Dallas Regional Chamber · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- City Sales and Use Tax (city rate table) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- Transit Sales and Use Tax (Dallas MTA, effective January 1, 1984) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax, Transit ridership
- Sales and Use Tax · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Sales tax
- Texas Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes, Character
- 2025 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- 2026 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
- Property Tax Exemptions · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: Tax notes
- Dallas approves $5.66 billion budget for 2026-27 fiscal year · Lake Highlands Advocate · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character
- City of Dallas Update on Proposition U, Police and Fire Funding Appropriation · City of Dallas · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character
- About DART (DART facts) · Dallas Area Rapid Transit · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
- Silver Line Launches Oct. 25, Connecting Seven Cities and DFW Airport with Modern, Reliable Transit · Dallas Area Rapid Transit · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
- Dallas Area Rapid Transit (citing the APTA Transit Ridership Reports, Q4 2025 and Q2 2026, through Template:American transit ridership) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
- DART services in Richardson, Plano to remain unchanged as Highland Park withdraws · Community Impact · retrieved Supports: Transit ridership, Character
- DFW Total Passengers, December 2025 (calendar year 2025 vs 2024) · Dallas Fort Worth International Airport · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- World's Busiest Airports: Atlanta Holds, Asia Climbs (2025 passenger and movement rankings) · ACI World · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Dallas Love Field (2025 passenger totals from the FAA, location, Southwest Airlines) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
- Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Parkland Memorial Hospital · UT Southwestern Medical Center · retrieved Supports: Health care
- About the Trauma Center · Parkland Health · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Baylor University Medical Center, part of Baylor Scott & White Health · Baylor Scott & White Health · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Children's Health and UT Southwestern break ground on new Dallas pediatric campus, announce $100 million donation from The Rees-Jones Foundation · UT Southwestern Medical Center · retrieved Supports: Health care
- UT Southwestern and Children's Health receive $25 million from the Harry W. Bass, Jr. Foundation for new pediatric campus · UT Southwestern Medical Center · retrieved Supports: Health care
- New Dallas Pediatric Campus Puts Children First · Southwestern Medical District · retrieved Supports: Health care
- On Dallas ISD's first day of school, enrollment's down, but letter grade may be up · KERA News · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- Southern Methodist University (fall 2025 enrollment, University Park) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- Dallas College (seven campuses in Dallas County) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places of 50,000 or More (all states, SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: City population, Character
- Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Houston Police Department (TXHPD0000): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
- Houston homicides drop 17% in 2025, as experts say multiple factors drive national trend · Houston Chronicle · retrieved Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
- Crime continues downward surge in 2025 in Houston and nationwide (Major Cities Chiefs Association year-end survey) · Houston Chronicle · retrieved Supports: Violent crime rate, Crime trend
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012960 Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall, Climate normals, Climate hazards, Character, January 53.8F, July 85.1F and August 85.2F from the monthly series, and annual mean 70.5F, precipitation 51.84 in, snowfall 0.1 in and the counts of days at 90F and 100F and nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
- US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012918 Houston William P. Hobby Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate normals
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport (USW00012960), 1969-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 31.26 in from 25 to 29 August 2017 and 16.07 in on 27 August 2017, 9.92 in on 18 April 2016, 46 days at or above 100F in 2011 and 24 in a row from 1 to 24 August 2011, 45 in 2023, 9 in 2026 through 21 September, 109F on 4 September 2000, 27 August 2011 and 24 and 27 August 2023, 1.0 in of snow on 15 February 2021 and 13F on 16 February 2021, 7F on 23 December 1989, 1.4 in of snow on 20 and 21 January 2025 and 20F on 22 January 2025
- Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Houston William P. Hobby Airport (USW00012918), 1930-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, 37.01 in from 25 to 29 August 2017
- Hurricane Harvey & Its Impacts on Southeast Texas (August 25-29, 2017) · National Weather Service, Houston/Galveston · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Immediate Flood Report, Final Report: Hurricane Harvey, 2017 · Harris County Flood Control District · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character
- National Hurricane Center Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Beryl (AL022024) · NOAA National Hurricane Center · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- Houston power outages: Hurricane Beryl plunges 2.2 million into the dark · Houston Public Media · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards, Character
- Public Utility Commission releases investigative report on CenterPoint's response to Hurricane Beryl · The Texas Tribune · retrieved Supports: Climate hazards
- ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for Houston city and the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
- ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for the 50 states, DC, the US, Harris County, Houston city and the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved Supports: Health care, Character
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX MSA (LAUMT482642000000003), Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, and the US rate (LNU04000000), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Unemployment rate
- Current Employment Statistics, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX MSA: total nonfarm (SMU48264200000000001, SMS48264200000000001) and supersectors (SMU4826420xx00000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Fortune 500 Companies (Houston ranks second among US metro areas in Fortune 500 headquarters) · Greater Houston Partnership · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- 27 Houston companies make Fortune 500 for 2026, led by energy giants · CultureMap Houston (InnovationMap) · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Port Houston Statistics · Port Houston · retrieved Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
- Houston won't raise property tax rate despite budget concerns · The Bond Buyer · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character
- City of Houston passes Whitmire's $7.5 billion budget for fiscal year 2027 · Houston Public Media · retrieved Supports: Tax notes, Character
- About METRO · Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
- Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (citing the APTA Transit Ridership Reports, Q4 2025 and Q2 2026, through Template:American transit ridership) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
- Houston Airports closes 2025 with strong international growth, record cargo performance · Houston Airports · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Houston Airports earns global honors as record travel powers momentum · Houston Airports · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- Houston Airports shatters passenger record with 63.1 million travelers in 2024 · Houston Airports · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers
- George Bush Intercontinental Airport (2025 passenger totals from the FAA, location, United Airlines hub) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
- William P. Hobby Airport (2025 passenger totals from the FAA, location, Southwest Airlines) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
- About Us (TMC at a Glance) · Texas Medical Center · retrieved Supports: Health care, Character
- Harris Health Ben Taub Hospital · Harris Health · retrieved Supports: Health care
- Harris Health System Breaks Ground on Northeast Houston Hospital · Harris Health · retrieved Supports: Health care
- HISD cuts staff, campus budgets after enrollment drops nearly 10,000 from last September · Houston Chronicle · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- HISD reports about 168,800 students enrolled in 2025-26 school year, a loss of 4.5% · Houston Chronicle · retrieved Supports: Education
- Mike Miles expects HISD's state takeover to end after this school year · Houston Chronicle · retrieved Supports: Education
- High costs, dwindling enrollment: Is Houston ISD's playbook under takeover sustainable? · The Texas Tribune · retrieved Supports: Education, Character
- University of Houston (fall 2025 enrollment) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- Rice University (fall 2024 enrollment) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- Houston City College (formerly Houston Community College, 1971-2025) · Wikipedia · retrieved Supports: Education
- NTREIS monthly MLS summary report, August 2026 · North Texas Real Estate Information System and the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University, via the MetroTex Association of REALTORS · retrieved Supports: A median single-family sale price of $469,900 in the City of Dallas in August 2026 on 640 sales, against $499,900 on 667 sales in August 2025, A median townhouse sale price of $543,000 on 30 sales, against $475,000 on 42, and a median condominium sale price of $310,000 on 121 sales, against $237,000 on 136, 2,725 active single-family listings and 4.2 months of inventory in the City of Dallas, A median single-family lease of $2,850 a month on 276 leases, City figures by property type only, with no all-types median
- Housing market reports · MetroTex Association of REALTORS · retrieved Supports: Monthly reports featuring data from the Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center, based on listings of properties physically located within the specified geographic areas
- Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, middle tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value of $305,765 for the city of Dallas (region 38128) in August 2026, $310,919 in August 2025, so a fall of 1.7% over the year
- Zillow Home Value Index, single-family and condominium series, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical single-family value of $319,987 in the city of Dallas in August 2026, against $324,674 a year earlier, down 1.4%, A typical condominium value of $208,501 in the same month, against $222,477, down 6.3%, from the condominium file at https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/City_zhvi_uc_condo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv
- Dallas, TX average rent and rent trends · RentCafe / Yardi Matrix · retrieved Supports: An average Dallas apartment rent of $1,592, down 0.92% from $1,607 a year earlier, updated 31 August 2026, Average rents of $1,245 studio, $1,416 one-bedroom, $1,853 two-bedroom and $2,221 three-bedroom
- Zillow Observed Rent Index, all homes plus multifamily, smoothed, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: An observed rent index of $1,591 for the city of Dallas in August 2026, up 0.63% from $1,581 a year earlier
- 2025 ad valorem tax rates for Dallas County, revised 5 November 2025 · Dallas Central Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: 2025 rates per $100: Dallas County 0.215500, Parkland Hospital 0.212000, Dallas College 0.106575, Dallas 0.698800, Dallas ISD 0.993835, Optional homestead exemptions of 20% for Dallas County, Parkland Hospital, Dallas College and the City of Dallas, and 10% for Dallas ISD, A general homestead exemption of $140,000 for every school district, contingent on the November 2025 constitutional amendment, A calculated local optional homestead value of not less than $5,000, Separate rates and exemptions for Highland Park, University Park, Cockrell Hill and Highland Park ISD
- 2026 estimated ad valorem tax rates for Dallas County, revised 4 March 2026 · Dallas Central Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: The 2026 table was an estimate, repeating the 2025 rates for the five units, when these figures were retrieved
- 2025 and 2026 residence homestead average and median values · Dallas Central Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: A certified median residence homestead market value of $364,530 in the City of Dallas for 2025, on 177,599 homesteads, A certified median of $364,000 for 2026, on 172,862 homesteads, in the table dated 22 July 2026
- Annual report, 2025 appraisal year · Dallas Central Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: 230,276 protests received for the 2025 appraisal year, 180,733 of them residential, and 788,553 appraisal notices mailed, A protest process that begins around 15 April and concludes by 20 July each year
- Valuing property: the homestead cap and the circuit breaker limitation · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: A residence homestead's appraised value may not rise more than 10% a year, from the year after the owner first qualifies, A 20% annual limit on the appraised value of non-homestead property valued at $5 million or less, the circuit breaker, which expires on 31 December 2026
- Tax Code, Section 41.44: notice of protest · Texas Legislature · retrieved Supports: A protest must be filed by 15 May or the 30th day after the appraisal notice is delivered, whichever is later
- Midtown Improvement District · City of Dallas Office of Economic Development · retrieved Supports: The Midtown Improvement District, formerly the Vickery Meadow Public Improvement District, established in 1993 and renewed to 31 December 2032, An annual budget and assessment rate subject to a public hearing and Dallas City Council approval
- Public Improvement Districts (PIDs) layer · City of Dallas · retrieved Supports: Public improvement districts mapped by the City including Dallas DID, Uptown, Deep Ellum, Klyde Warren/DAD, Knox Street, Oak Lawn-Hi Line, Prestonwood, Lake Highlands, North Lake Highlands, Midtown, University Crossing, South Side, Far East Dallas and RedBird
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 24 September 2026 · Freddie Mac · retrieved Supports: A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 7.03%, up from 6.95% the week before and 6.30% a year earlier
- Texas homeowners insurance market overview · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved Supports: A statewide average homeowners premium of $3,489 a year for 2025, from the Texas Statistical Plan for Residential Risks, Hail as the largest cause of paid homeowners losses, $4.93 billion in 2024 against $2.21 billion for wind
- Insurance and your roof: what to know when buying a policy or filing a claim · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved Supports: Replacement cost coverage pays for a new roof at current prices, and actual cash value coverage pays replacement cost minus depreciation, As roofs age, some companies will switch to actual cash value, A deductible for wind and hail damage can differ from the deductible for other damage
- Texas homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Dallas premium of $6,915 a year and a Texas average of $5,910, for $500,000 of dwelling cover, updated 20 February 2026
- How much is homeowners insurance in Dallas, TX? · Insure.com · retrieved Supports: An average Dallas premium of $4,212 a year for $300,000 of dwelling cover, $100,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 27 May 2026
- Renters insurance in Texas · NerdWallet · retrieved Supports: An average Dallas renters premium of $167 a year for $30,000 of personal property, updated 23 September 2026
- Monthly homeowners' or condominium association fee, table B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Dallas city · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: A median monthly association fee of $280 among Dallas owner-occupied units that pay one, 50,335 of 226,859 owner-occupied units, or 22.2%, paying such a fee, from table B25142
- City of Dallas utility fees effective 1 October 2025 · City of Dallas · retrieved Supports: A residential sanitation fee of $40.09 a month, $43.40 with tax, A residential stormwater fee of $5.39 to $21.01 a month by impervious area, An environmental cleanup fee of $3.00 a month on every City of Dallas utility account
- Dallas Homebuyer Assistance Program (DHAP) · City of Dallas Housing and Homelessness Solutions · retrieved Supports: Assistance of up to $60,000 in High Opportunity Areas and $50,000 elsewhere in Dallas, for households at or below 80% of area median income, A maximum sales price of $342,000 for existing and newly built homes, for contracts from 1 September 2024, A second lien as an interest-free forgivable deferred loan with no monthly payments, prorated annually, with partial repayment due on a sale, lease or transfer, Administered by Business and Community Lenders of Texas from 1 May 2026
- 2025 Gazetteer files: places, Texas · United States Census Bureau · retrieved Supports: A land area of 339.685 square miles and a water area of 43.966 square miles for Dallas city
- HAR.com reports more choices and steady prices in Houston's August housing market · My Neighborhood News, republishing the Houston Association of REALTORS' August 2026 release · retrieved Supports: 7,100 single-family sales in Greater Houston in August 2026, down 11.5% from August 2025, A median single-family sale price of $330,000, down 1.5% or $5,000 from August 2025, and an average of $426,760, up 1.2%, A median of $330,000 for existing single-family homes, down 2.9%, 38,947 active single-family listings and a 5.3-month supply, 405 townhouse and condominium sales, unchanged, at a median of $195,000, down 7.1%, and an 8.8-month supply
- Greater Houston area home sales on the decline · Community Impact · retrieved Supports: From the August 2026 monthly housing update of the Houston Association of Realtors, published 16 September 2026, Single-family sales down 11.5% and the median single-family price down $5,000 to $330,000
- Monthly update: home sales, August 2026 · Greater Houston Partnership · retrieved Supports: 59,843 single-family sales in the region year to date through August 2026, according to the Houston Association of Realtors, A 12-month average of the median MLS sale price of roughly $331,000 in August 2026, down about one percent on a year earlier
- Houston Rent Report, October 2026 · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: A median rent of $1,120 for a one-bedroom and $1,327 for a two-bedroom in the city of Houston, and $1,269 across all bedroom sizes, Rents flat over September and down 2.3% over the past 12 months, A metro-wide median of $1,335, 5.0% above the city's
- Apartments for rent in Houston, TX: average rent · Apartment List · retrieved Supports: Average listed rents of $1,299 and up for a studio, $1,309 and up for one bedroom, $1,630 and up for two, and $2,102 and up for three or more
- FY 2026 fair market rents, Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX HUD Metro FMR Area · United States Department of Housing and Urban Development · retrieved Supports: FY 2026 fair market rents of $1,323 for one bedroom, $1,573 for two and $2,116 for three, as gross rents including utilities
- Jurisdictions: homestead exemptions and tax rates · Harris Central Appraisal District · retrieved Supports: 2025 rates per $100: Harris County 0.380960, Harris County Flood Control District 0.049660, Harris County Port of Houston Authority 0.005900, Harris County Hospital District 0.187610, Harris County Department of Education 0.004798, City of Houston 0.519190, Houston ISD 0.878300, Houston City College 0.098802, Homestead exemptions of 20% for every one of those units except Houston City College, which grants 17%, and a flat $140,000 plus 20% for Houston ISD, No 2026 rate yet for any of the eight, from the table's data at https://hcad.org/actions/hcad-module/default/jurisdictions, More than 400 active utility districts in the appraisal district's list, at a median 2025 rate of about 0.54 per $100
- Tax rates · Harris County Tax Office · retrieved Supports: The same 2025 adopted rates with their maintenance and operations and debt parts: Harris County 0.33696 and 0.044, the Flood Control District 0.03826 and 0.0114, the Hospital District 0.17876 and 0.00885, the City of Houston 0.40326 and 0.11593, Houston ISD 0.7116 and 0.1667, and the Port's whole rate as debt, The City of Houston's rate at 0.51919 for the 2023, 2024 and 2025 tax years, 2026 rates already listed for Harris County (0.4175), the Flood Control District (0.05266), the Hospital District (0.19528) and the Port (0.00603), and none yet for the City, Houston ISD or the college
- FY2027 adopted budget: General Fund revenues · City of Houston Finance Department · retrieved Supports: Taxable values within the City set by the Harris, Montgomery or Fort Bend central appraisal district, A City tax rate of 51.919 cents per $100 for tax year 2025, and an estimate of the same for 2026, Proposition 1 of November 2004 capping the annual increase in total property tax revenue at the lower of inflation plus population growth or 4.5%, and Proposition H of November 2006 raising the limit by $90 million, Tax bills sent by the Harris County Tax Office around mid-November and due by 31 January
- FY2027 adopted budget: letter from the Mayor · City of Houston · retrieved Supports: Houston has operated for more than a decade under two revenue caps, which forced a nearly 20% reduction in the tax rate
- FY2026 adopted budget: letter from the Mayor · City of Houston · retrieved Supports: No other large Texas city is burdened by both a locally imposed revenue cap and the state cap or must fund solid waste operations without dedicated revenues
- Development regulations · City of Houston Planning and Development Department · retrieved Supports: The City of Houston does not have zoning, and its codes do not address land use, Development governed by ordinance codes on how property can be subdivided, chiefly Chapter 42, within the city and its extraterritorial jurisdiction
- Deed restrictions · City of Houston Legal Department · retrieved Supports: The City's authority to enforce residential deed restrictions under Chapter 212 of the Local Government Code and sections 10-551 through 10-555 of the City Code
- Harris County's flooding history · Harris County Flood Control District · retrieved Supports: A major flood somewhere in Harris County about every two years, mostly in areas developed before current regulations, More flood insurance funds paid in Harris County than in any other community in the National Flood Insurance Program
- Hurricane Harvey frequently asked questions · Harris County Flood Control District · retrieved Supports: Flooding outside the FEMA mapped floodplain, from ponding and overland sheet flow when rainfall overwhelms street drainage, The mapped floodplain is only an estimate of where flooding is predicted to occur from a bayou or creek, The City of Houston as one of the local floodplain administrators for the National Flood Insurance Program
- Home, flood, wind: which policies do you need? · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved Supports: Most home policies do not cover floods; a flood policy covers damage from rising water
- Drainage utility charge FAQs · City of Houston, Rebuild Houston · retrieved Supports: A residential rate of $0.032 per square foot of impervious surface a year behind a curb and gutter and $0.026 on an open ditch, $48.00 a year, $4.00 a month, on 1,500 square feet behind a curb and gutter
- Property tax protests and appeals · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved Supports: A protest deadline of 15 May or 30 days after the appraisal district mails the notice of appraised value, whichever is later
- How much is homeowners insurance in Houston, TX? · Insure.com · retrieved Supports: An average Houston premium of $5,391 a year for $300,000 of dwelling cover, $100,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 27 May 2026, Standard home insurance policies generally exclude flood damage
- Monthly homeowners' association and condominium fee, tables B25142 and B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Houston city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved Supports: A median monthly association fee of $144 among Houston owner-occupied units that pay one, 176,568 of 385,594 owner-occupied units, or 45.8%, paying such a fee, and 31,837 paying $500 or more a month
- Homebuyer Assistance Program · City of Houston Housing and Community Development Department · retrieved Supports: Up to $75,000 for income-qualified first-time homebuyers, or buyers who have not owned a home in the last three years, at or below 80% of area median income, The home must pay taxes to the City of Houston, A no-interest forgivable loan secured by a lien, fulfilled if the buyer lives in the home for eight years, with a portion repaid on a sale or move before then, No maximum home price, and less than $50,000 in liquid assets
- About Houston: education · City of Houston · retrieved Supports: Houston ISD serves 312 square miles with 288 schools
- Local schools · City of Houston Mayor's Office of Education · retrieved Supports: Public school districts in the Houston area including Aldine, Alief, Cypress-Fairbanks, Fort Bend, Houston, Humble, Katy, Klein, Spring and Spring Branch, and North Forest annexed by Houston ISD in 2013
- 2025 was a year of transformation and change for HCC · Houston City College · retrieved Supports: The college publishing under the name Houston City College