National home prices are on the rise in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, with sharp increases now being seen for both owned homes and rental properties.
A recent analysis by Case-Shiller Index finds that prices increased by 7 to 19% every month from September of last year until June of 2021.
In addressing the issues, many of which come as nothing new, the Biden administration has countered with a number of wide-raging proposals, some of which are included in the president’s Build Back Better agenda.
With such factors as racial equity, economic growth and living standards in mind, the Biden-Harris administration is tapping both legislative and administrative interventions in hopes of evening the scales.
In partnership with the likes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, HUD, Treasury and state and local governments, the administration plans to flex its muscle to making nearly 100,000 units available over the next 36 months. Elements of the plan also call for the administration to make certain that single-family homes held by the government go to owner occupants or community-oriented nonprofits.
While the administration also continues to push Congress to invest in more affordable housing, including not as strictly enforcing measures such as exclusionary zoning, Treasury and HUD officials have also devised a plan to offer affordable financing from other federal sources, which could help rehabilitate up to two million housing units across the country.
Here in Texas, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin) is again seeking to take the state’s ban of inclusionary zoning off the books. To date, only Texas, Arizona and Tennessee ban the law that allows cities to mandate that developers provide housing for low-income residents anytime they seek zoning changes.
“The bill would simply strike the language in state statute that does not allow cities to require affordable housing units,” Hinojosa’s legislative director Cicely Kay told the Austin Monitor.
Hinojosa first filed the bill last year, but it never received a hearing. Earlier this year, the Council approved rezoning of property in the Blackland community of East Austin. Because the city cannot require developers to offer affordable housing, the developer signed a contract with the Blackland Community Development Corporation to purchase one unit a reduced price that it plans to rent or sell to a family living at 60% of the local median family income.