TYLER, Texas — It started as a family move - a normal event in life.
"We took this opportunity in Arkansas, and we sold our house. It was a great house, and...it sold instantly," Rachel Johnson said.
But after her father had a health scare, it turned into a nightmare, with their house sold and nowhere to go. "We'd already quit our jobs, and we had already sold our house...I was like, you've got to find me a house because I'm going to be homeless in like a week."
Her story is just one example of how hard it is to find a place to live right now, and if you're lucky enough to find a place, how hard it is to afford it. A Texas Monthly report shows home prices in Texas increased by 33 percent in the last two years, up in all but one of the state's 25 largest metropolitan areas.
Leslie Cain, owner of Leslie Cain Realty, says that started in East Texas "back in 2019...if you look at the data with absorption rates and supply and demand mid-2019, it really started to become a seller's market here."
In East Texas, median home prices have skyrocketed over the last two years - up nearly 23 percent in Tyler and almost 29 percent in Longview. It's just as tough to find a rental, too. Josh Tavenner with Nancy Wright Properties says "a lot of stuff isn't even making it to market. It's getting rented before it even goes online."
People are also selling their homes, and renting while they wait for prices to go down.
"Every time I turn around, I was talking to someone who's selling their house because they want to, you know, get 30, 40, 50 (thousand) over what they're asking for it and sell it," Tavenner said.
From there, people are renting to wait for the market to get back to normal.
"They're gonna kind of buckle down for a year, get a place they can, you know, be happy with for a year, rent it, and then assess what the market is doing at the end of their lease," he said.
Census data shows that in 2019, the median household income in Tyler was $52,932, and in Longview, it was $49,086. That's making it tough for some East Texans to compete with the sudden increase in costs. So, what's the best way to find an affordable place to live?
For rental homes, it's all about planning ahead.
"When you know when you're going to be moving. contact someone that is a professional in the rental market," Tavenner said.
If you're buying a house, be in it for the long-haul.
"It is a long ride [and] it can be it can be tiring, writing offer after offer...the right timing will present itself," Cain said.
If you're financing a new house, know that you have more options than the traditional 20 percent down, 30 year fixed mortgage.
"There's so many great programs that are out there [where] you don't have to have 20% down," said Monica Rucker, loan specialist at Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation. "We have a no down-payment program out here. It's built for the rural areas. And so you can get in...with nothing, if you qualify."
Rucker also mentioned other options, including three percent and five percent down.
"So what the customer has available to them is far more options than just the 20% down," she said.
One thing experts feel confident about - it won't be like this forever. For now, rental companies are ramping up and trying to adapt to this new normal.
"Between now and I guess the next 12 months … we're going to have just over 500 new (rentals) in the Tyler area trying to accommodate for all the people that are moving here, all the people that are needing a place to live and rent," Tavenner said.
Mortgage specialists are reminding people to look back in time and remember that the mortgage market is in a much better place than it was years ago.
"If you look at rates historically...over the last 30 to 50 years, they've averaged...eight or eight [percent] plus. So if we're in the threes and the fours...we're still in a great spot when it comes to interest rates," Rucker said.
For Johnson and her family, they finally found a place to live. They bought a new home from a builder, for full asking price. But the search for their dream home has been put on hold.
"So we got a very nice, brand new house on a half acre lot. It is what most people want. It is not what we wanted."
They wanted a place with more land.
"But we can't find that now. Not for under $430,000."