How Biden Administration is Tackling Rising Housing Costs
Federal government is also working to increase the availability of manufactured homes.
With home prices at an all-time high, due to a persistent lack of inventory, the Biden Administration is planning to address rising housing costs with a slew of new programs to boost supply, officials announced on Mar. 1,2024.
The White House announced that multiple federal agencies will use government programs to encourage the construction of affordable rental and manufactured housing. That’s on top of the federal government offering nearly $4 million in research grants to explore new ways to boost inventory.
That persistent lack of inventory has driven U.S. home prices to an all-time high. Many homeowners who bought during the pandemic are effectively locked into their homes due to their relatively rock-bottom mortgage rates, and either unwilling or unable to sell.
The strategy behind the actions on Thursday is “rally centered around making sure that there is affordability in a housing market for families who need it the most.”
The federal government is also working to increase the availability and affordability of manufactured homes. Manufactured housing refers to homes built off-site at factories before being moved to where they are set.
Under the new policy, HUD would update how it calculates loan limits for the manufactured-home loan program so that it is viable for people to buy them, as well as to encourage lenders o participate in the program and originate loans to interested buyers.
Around 22 million people live in manufactured housing, the government said.
“Manufactured homes are an important part of the nation’s lower-cost housing stock, yet many families, especially historically under-served communities, lack access to safe and affordable financing for these homes,” Rachel Siegal, senior officer with the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trust’ housing policy initiative said in a statement.
The announcement is also “a major step toward improving access to financing for thousands of American families that are shut out of today’s housing market,” Siegal said.
The White House announcement also said it was banning fees such as application and screening fees for government subsidized housing vouchers; issuing new policies to reduce evictions; and protecting renters from flawed tenant-screening reports.
Source: Excerpts from content created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal. Author -Aarthi Swaminathan
