Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris outlined some of her key economic policy priorities in a speech in North Carolina last week.
At the heart of her agenda is a plan to make housing more affordable – an issue that is becoming increasingly urgent for millions of Americans given the housing shortage and skyrocketing prices. Part of Harris’ plan is to stimulate the construction of large amounts of new housing through policy changes and subsidies. But there are many obstacles to new construction – from the often gridlocked Congress to state and local politicians and communities.
Harris has promised to build three million homes nationwide during her first term as president. She wants to offer tax incentives to builders to build first-home units – smaller, more affordable units – for first-time buyers. She would also expand an existing tax credit for companies that build affordable rental housing. And Harris says she would double the Biden administration’s $20 billion Housing Innovation Fund, which is designed to support local governments and developers looking for new ways to create affordable housing. Finally, the campaign called for reducing “red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy” that slows new construction.
These three million new homes would be in addition to the homes that developers would otherwise build, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Jenny Schuetz, an urban economics and housing policy expert at the Brookings Institute, told Business Insider that while a target for new home construction is helpful, it is not necessarily an accurate prediction.
“The government can’t possibly guarantee that a certain number of homes will be built,” Schuetz said. But, she added, “announcing the number and then marking progress is actually quite helpful.”
The Harris campaign’s housing proposals focus heavily on improving housing supply, as the country faces a severe housing shortage. Mario Tama/Getty Images
In addition to incentivizing the construction of new housing, Harris’ plan also calls for cracking down on investors who buy up homes in bulk and landlords who use rent-setting algorithms to “conspire with each other and drive up rents.”
The campaign also proposed expanding the Biden administration’s assistance for first-time home buyers and providing an average down payment of $25,000 for first-time buyers.
A spokesman for the Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Harris’ plan focuses more on increasing housing supply than the current administration. The federal government has traditionally focused its housing policy on demand-side subsidies such as housing vouchers. Schuetz and other housing experts welcome this shift, pointing out that the housing shortage is the main cause of the affordability crisis.
There is bipartisan agreement on housing policy. At the state level, Republican lawmakers have successfully cut red tape and boosted housing construction. But increasing federal funding and changing policies will not be easy in a deeply divided Capitol.
“Admitting that this is a problem does not mean saying we have a magic wand that can solve it,” Schuetz said.
Obstacles to action
The bulk of Harris’ housing plan would require congressional support and a lot of new funding. The WSJ reported that the single-family home tax credits and affordable housing construction would cost about $80 billion combined. And getting Congress to agree on anything is a serious challenge.
Andy Winkler, director of housing and infrastructure projects at the Bipartisan Policy Center, pointed out that while there is not much support among Republicans for demand-side housing policies like Harris’ down payment assistance program, some of the supply-side measures could find bipartisan support.
He is extremely optimistic that expanding the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and other supply-side, tax-based measures could pass Congress when it debates tax reform in 2025. But he is skeptical that the reforms Harris could push through would lead to three million new homes in four years – a goal he called “quite ambitious.”
“I can’t imagine there will be a clear victory. So if either the House or the Senate has a Republican majority, then I think the greatest potential lies in tax policy,” Winkler said.
In addition to engaging Congress, a Harris administration would also need to get states and localities to reform many levels of land-use regulations and other housing-related policies to make room for new construction. Many of the policies that restrict housing construction — including land-use laws like zoning — are controlled by local and state governments, meaning the federal government’s influence over these policies is limited.
The White House and Congress can use federal grants to incentivize local governments to loosen regulations and boost construction, but they can’t force those measures. And there is often strong local resistance that significantly slows or halts any kind of development.
While Republicans in Congress may be interested in reducing bureaucratic hurdles at the local and state levels, the devil is in the details, Winkler said.
“It’s really difficult at the federal level to incentivize this behavior,” he said.
