Empowering Local Governments to Address Housing Affordability

March 2021

NAR’s most recent Existing Home Sales report showed nationwide housing inventory lower than its been since we began tracking this data nearly four decades ago – way back in 1982.

In Denver, as in cities and towns across the country, we’ve heard reports of listings with more than 100 showings in one weekend and dozens of competitive offers rolling in soon after. Bidding wars and waived inspections and even sight-unseen offers have become more common than any of us would have ever imagined – especially if you asked this time last year.

So much of our economy and our society remains held back by this pandemic, but residential real estate has been an anomaly. Markets continue to operate at or near historic levels, while demand for the American Dream has seemingly never been higher.

If those inventory problems are not soon addressed, however, they could begin to hold back the market significantly, an impact that would reverberate throughout our broader economy.

NAR’s 2020 Policy Forum, held last February in Washington, D.C., brought together lawmakers and industry leaders to examine the numerous barriers to affordable housing in the U.S. There, we were reminded that an issue that is felt so strongly in so many places can present itself in a variety of unique ways, depending on the community.

NAR has made housing affordability one of our top advocacy priorities over recent years. And last month we took that commitment a step further, unveiling new research to help state and local governments develop tailored, individualized strategies to address affordability in their communities.

The report reiterates our belief that America’s affordability crisis will require policymakers to adopt a number of localized solutions, specifically through three key avenues:

Financial policy measures;
Policies aimed at increasing the supply of housing and zoning; and
Permitting policy reform.

While housing affordability problems are felt nationwide, lawmakers must consider solutions tailored to their communities’ individual needs in order to reverse these troubling trends. NAR looks forward to helping policymakers implement solutions proposed within this research, and we intend to continue driving these conversations forward across all levels of American government.

Comments(6)

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Andy Lagasse says
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I continue to believe that most interaction with Federal, State and Local governments become less for the consumer and more for continued control. The problems facing consumers are man made and are amplified by many factors that in the last year have made it clear that our representatives have not made better for Californians. The proof of that is that more families moved out of our state last year than into our state, which hasn’t happened in decades. Good fascial policies that promote capitalism, family pride and American vales with common sense programs will move California back to greatness.
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Vicky A Nissen says
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This is very vague. What kinds of policies does NAR want?
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Steven Brown says
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Well one thing that could be addressed with accuracy would be the moratorium on evictions. There are homes in this nation that have not had mortgage or tax payments by the occupant “former owners” since 2008. How by any twisted sense of political double speak or normal standards is this adding to the supply of affordable housing? When will the NAR get serious about these insane policies? The Texas Attorney General has won a case along these lines just to have the bureaucratic CDC come out and say it is not “healthy” to have these evictions proceed. What would Bill Gates, Tony Faucci or the CDC know about this? Time for action, forget Ideas and consider “solutions tailored to their communities individual needs”. The troubling trend is that this has been ignored for far too long. Lets get hard working families into these AFFORDABLE homes being abused by what amounts to squatters similar to those who occupy the US Congress.
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David Smith says
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If our current approach to selling housing like a commodity is to continue(debatable whether it should…), housing affordability is a giant issue, it is truly stratifying in an alarming manner at this point…
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Ricky Bodaford says
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Private property ownership, along with the complete bundle of rights is the cornerstone of our way of life, and of our profession. Government interference is not the solution. In fact, government interference is often one of the leading causes of increased costs of construction and ownership. We need for government to get out of the way, rather than to encourage even more government interference.
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Phil Cowherd says
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Government rules and regulations are the primary cause. In Florida we have tens ( maybe hundreds) of thousands of working people living in old run down hotels and motels. The cause is the Florida landlord and tenant act which makes it impossible to provide the judgement proof housing. The solution is always another government program, tax credit or subsidy which only makes the affordable housing developer wealthy and provides only a very small portion of the housing need. Generally we Realtors are promoting such rather than looking at the real problem and promoting the obvious solution!

Empowering Local Governments to Address Housing Affordability