New ways the White House, FHA support affordable housing

Img

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.

The housing market has undergone significant fluctuations in recent months, as inventory shortages and mortgage rates rising from COVID-era lows have created a volatile ecosystem.

Leading officials with the White House recently rolled out several initiatives to provide homeowners with new avenues of support. These include $100 million of funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing program and streamlining the Department of Transportation's DOT loan program.

The first round of grant funding, roughly $85 million, was allocated this year to the first round of PRO Housing recipients.

"Building rental units and homes faster means lower costs for consumers. … Not only will more units get to the market faster, but increasing the speed of construction lowers building costs," said the White House in a press release on Aug. 13.

Other initiatives involve expanding the categories of housing that can be built under HUD's Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards, allowing duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes to be constructed within compliance.

Read more: White House rolls out funding to boost affordable housing

The White House isn't alone in this effort, as the Federal Housing Finance Agency published a request for comment in July to crowdsource ideas to improve its affordable housing initiatives. Each Federal Home Loan Bank is required by law to allocate at least 10% of its prior year's income to fund its affordable housing programs.

While former U.S. President Donald Trump has been vocal on other issues like tax cuts and border control during his campaigning, he's been less clear about his stance on housing policies.  

Trump rolled back the Obama-era revisions to the Affirmatively Further Fair Housing provision of the Fair Housing Act towards the tail end of his time in office. The act tacked on more stringent reporting and planning requirements to HUD funding.

"I don't think he has a huge identity on housing, aside from that particular action, which suggested that he might be more favorable to local control of planning and zoning and giving local communities more power to approve new housing," Brian Connelly, a business law professor at the University of Michigan who specializes in real estate, land use and zoning, told American Banker's Kyle Campbell.

Inflation, however, has been a key issue the Republican party platform is hoping to tackle.

The document calls for "slashing inflation" to curb future mortgage rate rises as well as "open limited portions of federal lands to allow for new home construction, promote homeownership through tax incentives and support for first-time buyers and cut unnecessary regulations that raise housing costs."

Read more: Housing: The issue everyone is thinking about but not talking about

Rates have fallen regardless, as industry experts cite diminishing yields on the 10-year Treasury notes as the cause of this trend.

Below are recent notable impacts to the affordable housing market and how lenders and homeowners alike will be affected in the coming months.


More From Life Style