REALTOR® Day at the Texas Capitol

89th Legislative Session
March 26, 2025

REALTOR® Priorities: House Talking Points and Key Contact Meeting Notes

“LCT NOTES” IN BLUE ARE FOR REFERENCE ONLY; DO NOT READ ALOUD

  • LCT NOTE: This looks like a lot of content, but the meeting will go fast!
  • LCT NOTE: This script has a logical flow, but you don’t need to read it word-for-word – focus on the highlights! And some issues may be more or less relevant to your district – it’s okay to focus on the issues that make the most sense for your area, especially if time is limited.
  • LCT NOTE: If the Representative/staff asks questions about specific legislation that you’re not sure how to answer, DO NOT GUESS … assure them Texas REALTORS® lobby staff will follow up, and be sure to include that request in your report form. Key contacts may also share Julia, Seth, or Tray’s contact information (also included in the tri-fold pamphlet).
  • LCT NOTE: Key Contacts (or someone on the team) should have the tri-fold leave-behind that was handed out at the bus drop-off – if not, let staff know in your post-meeting report and we’ll run one by the legislator’s office.

Starting the Meeting

  •  LCT NOTE: Be sure to introduce yourself, explain who you are and the group, and what REALTOR® Day at the Texas Capitol encompasses.

Thank you for meeting with us today to talk real estate and Texas REALTORS® legislative priorities!

We’ve put together a simple pamphlet to lay out some of our priorities, including several specific bills Texas REALTORS® are supporting this year.

We are here today as representatives of the real estate profession and the millions of Texas homeowners, buyers, and sellers we serve. We want to discuss some of the key issues that impact housing and economic growth in our communities: housing affordability, water infrastructure, and property rights.

We want to be respectful of your time, so we’ll highlight some general priorities and just a few specific bills, all of which can be found on the one-pager.

  • LCT NOTE: Personal stories and personal examples are essential to describing why these issues matter to REALTORS®. Key Contacts can tell their own or call on other attendees to share how these issues have impacted them.

Housing Affordability

Homeownership is the foundation of financial security for Texas families, but we are in the beginning stages of an affordability crisis and are at risk of homeownership becoming out of reach for many people.

  • LCT NOTE: This is a good place to use the 2024 Housing Report from the portal – what are the challenges your first-time buyers face? What is the housing market like in your area?

The main obstacles are rising construction costs, excessive permitting delays, restrictive zoning laws, and of course, property taxes.

Rising property taxes are a huge threat to sustainable housing. While recent measures have provided some relief, we must ensure property tax burdens are manageable. We encourage continued exploration of long-term tax reform that keeps homeownership affordable.

We support Chair Meyer’s HB 8, which would provide huge tax savings across the board through school tax rate compression, as well as HB 9 and HJR 1 which will help independent contractors like us ourselves to exempt up to $250,000 in business personal property expenses. This has the potential to be an enormous savings for us.

  • LCT Note: The Lawmaker or staff may bring up appraisal caps. Texas REALTORS® has long maintained that appraisal increases are NOT the problem and appraisal caps cause troubling long-term inconsistencies in the market – reference California’s Prop 13, which passed almost 50 years ago and has done nothing to decrease the cost of housing.

Of course, there are other factors that affect housing affordability and there is no silver bullet to address this looming crisis – the solution requires creative thought and a diverse collection of federal, state, and local policy changes.

We support policies that cut red tape, streamline the permitting process, and promote diverse housing options to meet the needs of our workforce, first-time buyers, and growing families. There are several on our list; I’ll mention one that we’re happy to support:

HB 1779 (Bucy), which would let homeowners build or use an existing space as an accessory dwelling unit, while still allowing cities to regulate things like size and short-term rental occupancy. This is a great example of how we can “gently” increase density without overwhelming neighborhoods… and it adds to private property rights!

Water Infrastructure

Reliable water access is essential for Texas’ continued viability. As our population expands, we must invest in water infrastructure to ensure communities have sustainable supplies for homes, businesses, and agriculture. We support policies that fund water conservation, storage, and delivery systems while ensuring local governments have the resources to maintain and expand water infrastructure responsibly.

Our interest in this is based on this simple truth: Real estate derives its value from access to water. In fact, in simpler terms, without access to water, real estate is worthless.

We are delighted that the Legislature is proactively addressing long-term water needs and whole-heartedly support Chair Cody Harris’s HB 16 and HJR 7, which provide historic investment in the state’s water infrastructure.

Protecting Property Rights

Private property rights are a cornerstone of Texas’ economy – and Texas REALTORS® has a long history of being the leading advocate for private property rights.

However, burdensome regulations, overreach, and government-imposed restrictions can threaten these rights. We advocate for policies that protect property owners and prevent unnecessary restrictions on how property can be used or developed.

HB 1349 (Turner) continues the Legislature’s 2021 efforts to add more transparency to property owners’ associations. This bill had near-unanimous support in 2023, and was unfortunately vetoed during the property tax debate.

This bill reinforces property owner rights by making sure the transparency measures included in the 2021 legislation apply to all property owners’ associations, including condos. It also extends resale fee caps to condo transactions, as well. We respectfully request that you consider supporting these reforms.

HB 24 (Orr) ensures property owners are not unfairly restricted in using their property due to overly burdensome petition processes.

  • LCT NOTE: Legislators and staff may not be familiar with this issue, so if there are questions, some additional details about this bill: under current law, when the owner of a property requests a zoning change, a small number of surrounding land owner (20%) can trigger a protest vote that requires three-fourths of the city council to override (this is an extremely high bar, higher than to pass their budget). The proposed changes in this bill will bring fairness to this process by raising the number of surrounding owners it takes to fill a petition to 60%, and lowers the council vote to override to a simple a majority.

Transparency

We’ve talked about some pretty big issues here – Housing Affordability, Property Taxes, Water … things that a lot of people in Texas are talking about …

But, we have a few bills that are more specific to the real estate space that we’d like to bring forward.

HB 3913 (Harless) – this is our top priority and it modernizes and clarifies agency representation agreements in real estate transactions.

  • LCT NOTE: Most legislators and staff will not be familiar with this concept, so for your reference: this is the bill that repeals subagency and creates a written agreement between the buyer and an agent, while still allowing property to be shown without a full representation agreement.

HB 2615 (Harris) – this is legislation you heard yesterday in Committee that passed last year and was caught up in the veto flurry – it increases transparency for property owners by requiring public improvement district (PID) assessments to be included in county tax websites.

  • LCT NOTE: The representative or staff might not be familiar with PIDs. These districts are created by cities or counties and cover a particular neighborhood or region – the district is established to provide specific types of improvements or maintenance and is financed by assessments against the property owners within the area – those assessments are collected with property taxes, but are often not readily available.

HB 2214 (Walle) – a non-controversial bill that brings commonsense updates to the flood disclosure we are required to provide to residential tenants by allowing it to be included in the regular lease and lease renewal documents.

Meeting Conclusion

We appreciate your leadership and this opportunity to share our priorities.

 By working together, we can ensure Texas remains a place where people can achieve the dream of homeownership, businesses can thrive, and communities can grow responsibly.

Again, you can refer to our pamphlet, which outlines numerous specific bills we are supporting related to our priority issues.

We appreciate your attention. Do you have any questions for us? In particular, is there anything you need from the REALTORS®?

Our legislative staff’s contact information is on this pamphlet … they’re always available to answer questions about Texas REALTORS® stance on specific legislation.

  • LCT NOTE: Be sure to thank the legislator’s staff for all they do (legislative staff are tremendously important but are mostly behind the scenes). They keep this whole process moving!
  • LCT NOTE: Seek permission from the lawmaker or staff to grab a photo for use on social media.

Thank you for continuing to support the housing and real estate profession, and for taking the time to meet with us today!

  • LCT NOTE: Grab staffs’ cards if you or TR staff would like to follow up on any issues.
  • LCT NOTE: We recommend sending a handwritten thank-you note to the lawmaker and the staff.