housing affordability crisis by discouraging new development, which is key to bringing down rising prices. • Promote careers in the skilled trades. In any given month, there is a shortage of roughly 400,000 construction workers, and home builders will need to add 2.2 million new workers over the next three years just to keep up with demand. • Fix building material supply chains and ease costs. The cost of building materials has surged 38% since the pandemic, with the four-fold lumber price spike in 2021 adding more than $30,000 to the price of an average new single-family home. The price of distribution transformers is up 72% since February 2020, and the severe shortage of transformers is delaying housing projects across the nation. • Pass federal tax legislation to expand the production of affordable and attainable housing. The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit finances the production of affordable rental housing, but demand for this housing greatly exceeds available resources. • Overturn inefficient local zoning rules. Many local and state governments have adopted zoning laws that inhibit home construction and drive up costs. Inefficient land use policies make it harder and more expensive to build. Localities need to rework their zoning plans to increase density and allow more flexibility for developers. NAHB supports ideas such as reducing minimum lot sizes, allowing more accessory dwelling units, minimizing parking requirements and promoting missing middle housing (townhomes and duplexes). • Alleviate permitting roadblocks. Permitting delays at all levels of government delay housing projects and raise construction costs. Obtaining a CWA Section 404 permit takes upwards of one year, and completing a required ESA consultation can take years. At the state level, the Building Industry Association of Washington estimates that the average permitting delay in the state is 6.5 months and costs home buyers more than $31,000. One easy solution is a time limit on how long the government has to either deny or approve a permit. If the time limit ends without action, the permit is deemed approved. • Adopt reasonable and cost-effective building codes. New homes are resilient and energy efficient, yet there continues to be a push to mandate the use of restrictive, costly energy codes that raise housing costs while providing little energy savings to consumers. A study by the Home Builders Association of Greater Kansas City found that building to the 2021 IECC can add as much as
NAHB ANNOUNCES A 10-POINT PLAN TO TAME SHELTER INFLATION, EASE THE HOUSING AFFORDABILITY CRISIS NAHB Remodelers, Published 5/1/2024 With a nationwide shortage of roughly 1.5 million housing units that is making it increasingly difficult for American families to afford to purchase or rent a home, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) today unveiled a 10-point housing plan designed to tame shelter inflation and ease the housing affordability crisis by removing barriers that hinder the construction of new homes and apartments. “The lack of homes is the primary cause of growing housing affordability challenges,” said NAHB Chairman Carl Harris, a custom home builder from Wichita, Kan. “Any policy that seeks to improve affordability without addressing the need to increase the supply of single- family and multifamily for-sale and for-rent housing is doomed to fail.” Shelter inflation – rent and homeownership costs – is still rising well above a 5% rate, and for the past year, more than half of overall inflation in the economy has been due to rising housing costs. The only way to effectively tame shelter inflation – particularly with elevated interest rates for both mortgages and development/construction loans – is to build more attainable, affordable housing. With policymakers at all levels of government looking for ways to provide more affordable homeownership and rental housing opportunities for all Americans, NAHB is offering a plan that outlines initiatives that can be taken at the local, state and federal levels to address the root of the problem – the impediments to increasing the nation’s housing supply. • Eliminate excessive regulations. On average, regulations account for nearly 25% of the cost of a single-family home and more than 40% of the cost of a typical apartment development. Agencies and officials at all levels of government must thoughtfully consider the true effect regulations have on small businesses by requiring a more thorough analysis, including indirect costs associated with a proposed rule. Federal efforts to further regulate the housing industry must be subject to greater congressional oversight, allow for increased public participation in the process, be based on sound data, and should only be undertaken after a careful consideration of the costs and benefits as well as the potential effects on small businesses. At the local level, policies like rent control actually worsen the nation’s
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