Is the federal government the inventory savior we’ve been looking for? For a segment of would-be homebuyers, yes, as the Biden-Harris Administration is hoping to boost ownership with the announcement of the Housing Supply Action Plan.
Unveiled by the White House this week, the plan includes legislative and administrative actions to close America’s housing supply shortfall in five years, starting with the creation of hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units in the next three years. Coupled with rental assistance and downpayment assistance, the White House calls this the most comprehensive government effort to close the housing supply shortfall in history.
Focusing on low- and moderate-income families, key initiatives within the plan include deploying new financing mechanisms to build and preserve more housing where financing gaps currently exist; making Construction to Permanent loans more widely available; and promoting the use of state, local, and Tribal government COVID-19 recovery funds to expand affordable housing supply.
Additionally, the Administration seeks to ensure that more government-owned supply of homes goes to owners who will live in them (not large institutional investors), while working with the private sector to address home construction supply chain challenges and improve building techniques to finish construction in 2022 on the most new homes in any year since 2006.
The White House notes that the President’s 2023 Budget includes investments in housing supply that would lead to the production or rehabilitation of another 500,000 homes.
In an effort to reduce regulatory barriers to housing production, the Administration announced it is taking immediate steps including integrating affordable housing into Department of Transportation programs. The goal here is to put in place land-use policies that promote density and rural main street revitalization, using federal transportation programs to encourage state and local governments to boost housing supply.