By Tracey Velt | Your Valley
Hampered by labor shortages, rising material costs and government regulation, homebuilders are looking to Congress for ways to decrease the estimated “under-building gap” of 5.5 million homes and help with housing affordability.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is joining the National Association of Realtors (NAR) in its bid to rectify the tremendous housing shortage in the U.S.
NAHB CEO Jerry Howard testified before Congress and called on lawmakers to enact key policy proposals that will help homebuilders to expand the housing supply, reduce the housing deficit and improve housing affordability for all Americans.
“Over the past decade, the residential construction industry has underbuilt and not kept pace with demand due to several supply-side constraints,” said Howard. “These include a lack of skilled labor and buildable lots, tight lending conditions, shortages and rapidly rising prices for building materials, and excessive regulatory burdens on homebuilders that have added approximately 25% to the cost of a single-family home and 33% to a multifamily unit. Progress must be made on all fronts to ease the supply-side challenges that are holding back housing production.”
