President Joe Biden acknowledged last week that alleviating the worst inflationary pressure the county has seen in 40 years is a main priority heading into the midterms. Meanwhile, housing prices have hit an all-time high, with mortgage rates rising.
The Biden administration will announce an action plan to help close the affordable housing gap and “ease the burden of housing costs,” CNN reports. One of the steps is leveraging existing federal funding to encourage state and local reform to zoning and land use policies via funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Department of Transportation. They will also take steps to improve federal financing mechanisms for manufactured housing, multifamily housing, and the construction and rehabilitation of single-family homes. Other plans are as follows:
- The Biden administration will direct the supply of affordable housing for owner-occupants, which addresses “the growing trend of large institutional investor purchases of single-family homes.”
- Working with the private sector to address supply chain challenges and improve building techniques to finish construction in 2022 on the most new homes in any year since 2006.
- Take steps to finance or produce more manufactured housing, accessory dwelling units — also known as garage apartments, basement apartments, or backyard homes — 2-4 unit properties, and smaller multifamily buildings
“The Plan’s policies to boost supply are an important element of bringing homeownership within reach for Americans who, today, cannot find an affordable home because there are too few homes for sale in their communities. And it will help reduce price pressures in the economy, as housing costs make up about one-third of the market basket for inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index,” the White House said in a fact sheet.
In the overall plan, there will be legislative moves that will need the approval of Congress. If passed, they include tax credits for low- and middle-income home buyers and a proposed $25 billion for grants for affordable housing production.