Everybody in Nashville seems to agree there's a housing problem. Where they part ways is what to do about it, and some of the ideas on the table this election season would change how homes get permitted and paid for in Tennessee.
The Nashville Banner laid out where the candidates for governor stand, drawing on their questionnaire answers, and talked to housing experts and voters. Housing came up again as a top worry in the Banner's community survey this fall, just as it did in the 2024 cycle.
What the candidates say
The Banner reported that all the candidates generally agreed on adding housing supply to meet demand, but they split on the details. Several of their ideas land right on a builder's desk.
Republican nominee Marsha Blackburn said there's a housing shortage in high-growth areas, "but the solution is not more government intervention." She said she'd reduce barriers to development by simplifying permitting and work to make sure "spending and regulations don't make it harder to build affordable, quality homes."
Democrat Jerri Green said that on her first day she would put $10 million in Tennessee Assistance for Needy Families funding toward helping young and low-income Tennesseans with security deposits. She also said she'd put more money into homeowner assistance and generally try to increase supply.
Independent Lauren Pinkston wants to rework Tennessee Housing Development Authority loans to help first-time buyers and current owners who need to make repairs. She'd also cap how much cities can raise property tax revenue each year. "And I'll let counties charge proportionate impact fees on large developments, with exemptions for affordable housing and small infill projects," she said.
Green Party candidate Dave Seeman would put state money into community land trusts, pass zoning reform allowing more density, add support for tenants facing eviction and look to speed up permitting.
Where the cheap rentals went
Jim Fraser, an associate professor at Virginia State University who taught at Vanderbilt from 2007 to 2018 and advised the city on housing, shared numbers with the Banner that tell a hard story. Between 2006-2010 and 2020-2024, Nashville added about 46,000 rental homes, but the number renting for under $1,000 a month in 2024 dollars fell by 15,000.
The losses weren't only in gentrifying neighborhoods like East Nashville. Some of the biggest drops came farther out, along Nolensville Pike (down 3,250), in Antioch (down 2,340) and in Madison (down 1,093).
Since 2010, Fraser said, Davidson County home prices have climbed an average of 2.3% a year while incomes grew about 1.3%. Vanderbilt economist Gerard Domènech-Arumí told the Banner that more than half of Nashville households are cost-burdened, spending over 30% of their income on housing.
Fraser pointed to Metro's Unified Housing Strategy from April 2025, which the Banner said calls for 90,000 new homes, 20,000 of them affordable. The mayor's office announcement of that strategy cited a 45% median increase in property values over the previous four years and came with a Ten-Year Implementation Plan. One challenge, Fraser said, is that affordability is pegged to area median income, which is high in Nashville, and developers will likely push to price homes at a higher share of it to make projects pencil.
Building is the answer, with a caveat
Domènech-Arumí's view was simple. "Ultimately," he said, "the solution is about building more housing." He pointed to Austin, which he said has managed to lower rents partly by building a lot. And over the past year, he said, Nashville housing prices dipped 2-3%.
Peabody professor Warren Lowell raised a different side of it. He described how distressed properties draw investors looking for the biggest discount, and said some developers in East Nashville are tearing down original homes and building three houses on those lots. That adds housing, he said, but it also "drastically" changes the streetscape.
Why it matters for Contractors
Whoever wins the governor's race, at least two of the four candidates are talking about simpler or faster permitting, and one is floating county impact fees on large developments that would spare small infill jobs. Those details would change the math on projects across Tennessee. In Nashville itself, the need is plain: tens of thousands of homes called for, and the cheapest rentals disappearing fastest on the edges of town. Builders who can deliver infill and starter-priced homes at a cost that pencils are the ones the experts are counting on, so it pays to watch which of these ideas survives the election.