Is There Rent Control in Texas?
The laws in Texas that deal with rent regulation only apply after a natural disaster, so you won't be able to find rent-controlled housing anywhere in the state.
Rent regulation refers to laws passed by cities or states that, for certain qualified housing, limit the amount of rent a landlord can charge. Perhaps the most famous rent-regulation program in the United States is in New York City, where nearly half of the apartments are rent-regulated in some way.
Unfortunately for tenants, Texas has no rent control or rent stabilization laws. With one extremely limited exception, Texas landlords from Austin to El Paso are free to set monthly rents as high as they choose, constrained only by market forces.
What is this exception you speak of?
It is so limited that it almost definitely doesn’t apply to you. According to Section 214.902 of the Texas Property Code, localities in Texas are allowed to create some form of rent control only in the wake of a “disaster,” as that term is defined in Texas law . A disaster includes things like fires, floods, earthquakes, oil spills, and storms. The proposed rent regulations must be approved by the governor and terminate when the natural disaster is abated.
To put into perspective how rarely used this law is, even after the devastating Hurricane Harvey, not a single municipality in Texas established temporary rent control.
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