NAHB: Regulations Are Driving Up Home Prices

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is using this month’s National Homeownership Month observations to call for a loosening of regulations that the group has blamed for increasing the cost of housing.

“The aggressive over-regulation of the housing industry is putting the American Dream of safe and affordable housing at-risk,” said NAHB Chairman Ed Brady, a home builder and developer from Bloomington, Ill.

Last month, the NAHB published “Government Regulation in the Price of a New Home,” a report that detailed how government regulations accounted for nearly one-quarter of the final price of a new single-family home. In NAHB’s data, the regulatory costs for an average single-family home increased nearly 30 percent from $65,224 in 2011 to $84,671 in 2016.

“Regulators at all levels of government–local, state and federal–must understand that their actions have real consequences,” said NAHB Chief Executive Officer Jerry Howard. “The cost of regulation in the price of a new home is rising more than twice as fast as the average American’s ability to pay for it. That is simply not sustainable.”