Consider this wannabe homebuyer: She’s 31, a renter and lives alone with her elderly cat. She’s a median earner in her city. She has enough savings to cover a small down payment, but that financial decision would drain those savings. She worries about what would happen if she needed the furnace replaced, or foundation repaired, in part because she wouldn’t split the cost or upkeep with anyone.  

That hypothetical buyer is actually me. 

I’ve been a renter for my entire adult life, including the last five years in Omaha. And every few weeks since I turned 30, I find myself clicking through Zillow and wondering: Should I buy a house? Can I even afford a house? 

Six months of reporting on the climbing cost of housing in Nebraska have shown me that I’m not alone at that crossroads of renting or buying. 

Especially post-pandemic, the cost of a home in Nebraska has ballooned while wages have stayed stagnant. It’s forcing bidding wars in the smallest of towns and leading to apartment-building booms in the metros. It’s keeping older Nebraskans looking to downsize trapped in their too-large homes and it’s pricing out younger generations like me who would love to be homeowners. 

So what’s happening to try and make homeownership more attainable? I found answers in Omaha’s Benson neighborhood, North Platte and across state lines in Des Moines.  

Go Small And Go Home In Benson

On a lot at the corner of 58th and Corby streets sit two brightly colored, small houses. Don’t you dare call them tiny — tiny houses and accessory dwelling units don’t qualify for conventional loans. 

These cute little homes stand out on this residential street — so much so that on my visit, I watch a man get out of his car to snap a photo with his phone. 

It happens all the time, says Jessica Scheuerman, executive director of Partners for Livable Omaha. 

These two houses are the product of a partnership between the nonprofit, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s FACT Lab and Actual Architecture Co.

The assignment: There are plenty of designs out there for typical three-bed, two-bath homes with a garage, basement and a yard. But could the team come up with something that’s financially attainable and friendly for aging adults? That could be built into existing neighborhoods to help keep people in their community as they downsize? 

“There’s a tremendous market failure happening right now, and that is leaving older adults vulnerable,” Scheuerman said. “It’s leaving people who have accessibility challenges vulnerable. And it’s also leaving first-time buyers that might be single or a couple vulnerable, too.” 

Solving that market failure took consulting bankers and lenders, real estate agents and developers. City planners and the AARP chimed in, as did a gerontology professor. Thirty-four graduate students over three semesters had hands on the project. It took navigating city building permits and jumping through zoning hoops. 

The possible fix they landed on: Two prototype homes in Omaha’s Benson neighborhood designed to be energy efficient, affordable and adaptable as people age. 

First, there’s Corby House, a two-bedroom, 802-square-foot home that already has been sold to a local artist. Next door is Benson House, a one-bedroom, 602-square-foot home that’s still listed for $200,000. 

The houses are reminiscent of something out of an IKEA catalog, with bright yellow entryways and aesthetically pleasing orangey-red and teal sidings. The interior renderings are equally sleek and modern, with bright colors following you inside, too. 

The renderings are so cute that a few months ago, I took off my journalist hat and toured the construction site as a casual consumer thinking about buying. 

The aesthetics come courtesy of the students — having the brainpower and creativity of 34 students was akin to hiring a large architecture firm to work on a small project, Scheuerman said. 

“A lot of times, small developers end up going to existing designs because they can’t afford to hire a designer, so they’re just sort of replicating things that are already out there,” Scheuerman said.  “Adding the students really helped ground this project into two markets — the first-time buyer and the downsizer. And it gave us an aesthetic that is appealing across age and across ability.” 

The houses are built with structural insulated panels — basically styrofoam insulation sandwiched between plywood. Those panels aren’t commonly used in Nebraska, said Jeffrey Day, the UNL professor overseeing the students. There’s no Nebraska-based manufacturer yet, and building with them posed a learning curve for the project’s construction crew. 

But the panels are low maintenance and have major energy-efficiency benefits, Day said. Annual heating for the small homes is estimated at $350, less per year than other Omaha homes might cost you in one winter month. Cooling is even lower at $50 — perfect for someone on a fixed income. The material can also cut construction time significantly compared to traditional stick-built homes. 

The homes also feature energy-efficient fiberglass windows. A shallower foundation than what’s typically used in Nebraska means less digging, less concrete, less labor and a faster build. 

The floors are polished and sealed concrete, a design choice you’re more likely to see in higher-end builds. But once again, it saves time — and money. 

There are no hallways. The cabinetry divides spaces into rooms. The kitchen and bathroom share the same plumbing system. There are no steps, and the doors are wider than usual for accessibility. 

“Efficiency and ingenuity is kind of embedded in everything that we have done,” Day said. 

Now the plan is to release a catalog of house designs all based on the same design system. The college will make the construction documents licensable to the general public, and Partners for Livable Omaha will start another small house development.

“We’re trying to absorb as much of (the design cost) as we can, bottle it for the general public and create a turnkey solution,” Scheuerman said. 

Small developers are the key to projects like this, said Buey Tut, CEO of Spark CDI, the lender for the project. Larger developers aren’t likely to go after projects that fill up one or two lots. It’s smaller, local developers who are needed to do that neighborhood-level work. 

“They’re willing to share their experience, which is huge,” Tut said. “It’s not proprietary, they’re open to having other developers learn from their accomplishments and their mistakes.” 

Building Buy-In In North Platte

I first spoke with Gary Person in North Platte five years ago for a story on small-town housing. At the time, North Platte had 40 homes on the market — “embarrassingly low” for the community of 23,390, the head of the North Platte Area Chamber and Development Corporation said. 

Now, when you look at Zillow, there are 172 homes for sale in North Platte proper. 

“We went from a pretty dire situation to one that’s kind of enviable right now,” Person said. 

For decades, communities like North Platte simply didn’t build. The Farm Crisis of the ’80s hammered contractors and developers. The housing crisis of the early 2000s dealt another blow. 

But since 2023, North Platte has approved 20 new developments — equal to about 2,400 new housing units in the city when all construction is done. 

The key? Getting community leaders to use tools like tax increment financing and other incentives that lowered costs for both developers and homeowners, Person said. 

Housing “just doesn’t take care of itself,” Person said. “Maybe it did back in the day. Well, the game has changed, and the strategy has changed.” 

It started with the development corporation’s Shot in the Arm program, Person said. Using a combination of local and state funds, developers got a $12,000 bonus for every house built. 

The program was so popular it ran out of funds — but only after it helped add nearly 500 new housing units.

The chamber didn’t stop there: It established a neighborhood on the north side of town, where there are plans for 49 modular homes. It also created a revolving loan fund to keep incentivizing developers. It’s loaning $1.19 million in state funds and $610,000 in local funds to a developer planning a 12-unit apartment in the neighborhood. That loan will get repaid over seven years, to be put toward future housing projects and rehabbing blighted areas in town. 

How To Lower Prices? In Des Moines, Build 

Through the course of our reporting on housing, longtime Omaha reporter Henry Cordes approached me with a finding he had stumbled upon: The housing crisis hit home construction nationwide. But in the years following, the city of Des Moines had an easier time bouncing back than Omaha. 

Des Moines has outpaced Omaha home construction nearly every year since 2010. If Omaha had built at the same rate as Des Moines, an additional 28,991 homes would have been added to the market in the metro. 

It begs the question — why?  

Turns out, like most things in the housing world, there is no one perfect answer. 

Omaha and Des Moines are similar, said Dan Knoup, executive officer of the Des Moines Home Builders Association: fairly white collar, with many financial and insurance jobs. They both have steady economies not subject to dramatic booms and busts. And at 1,001,186 and 753,913 people, respectively, they’re both urban hubs that draw movers from their states’ rural communities. 

“The only thing I can really kind of pinpoint is that our people are anticipating those people moving to town and the need for housing is there, so we’re building more speculative homes,” Knoup said. 

There are a few other key differences between the markets: Omaha homes have climbed in price faster than comparable Des Moines homes. For example, a house that cost $250,000 in 2015 ballooned to $425,000 in Des Moines, compared to $486,000 in Omaha, according to federal house price index data. 

On average since 2016, Des Moines homes hovered around 1,560 square feet. Omaha homes are closer to 2,200 square feet, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 

And Omaha has seen cost burdens climb faster than Des Moines, said Shannon Harner, executive director of the Nebraska Investment Finance Authority. For the past four years, apartment construction has consistently outpaced single family homes, something Cordes reported on earlier this summer. Not only are more people renting, but more higher earners are renting, Harner said. 

Buyers in Des Moines end up with more options and more negotiating power. Active listings in Des Moines rose by 8.2% from July 2025 to July 2026. In Omaha, on the other hand, buyers had fewer homes to choose from compared to a year ago — active listings in the same time frame fell by 9.9%. 

“In Omaha specifically, it’s a cash problem,” said Nick Dolphens, senior vice president of Omaha operations with Hubbell Realty. “People don’t have cash for down payments.” 

Saving more cash for a down payment is this wannabe buyer’s house hunting reality. Like a lot of potential buyers, I’m still not sure if owning property is the right move for me. But until then, you’ll still catch me scrolling through Zillow, fantasizing about a yard and being able to paint my walls.

Flatwater reporter Henry Cordes contributed to this story. This story was originally published by Flatwater Free Press, an independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories in Nebraska that matter. Read the article at: https://flatwaterfreepress.org/the-price-of-a-house-keeps-climbing-one-wannabe-omaha-homebuyer-goes-hunting-for-solutions/