New Bipartisan Housing Caucus Aims To Tackle The Nation's Housing Crisis
There’s a new caucus in town.
The Bipartisan Housing Caucus, announced Monday, will focus on bringing awareness to the nation's affordable housing crisis and boosting development, Propmodo reports.
It has support from 11 industry organizations, though exactly how it will enact change that benefits the real estate industry is unclear.
Four congressional legislators, Democrats Brittany Pettersen and J. Luis Correa and Republicans Mark Alford and Tracey Mann, formed the caucus. Each representative has a real estate background.
Pettersen sits on the Housing and Insurance subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, Alford proposed legislation blocking foreign investors from buying U.S. land, Correa is a former residential broker and Mann was a former commercial real estate broker.
“Our Caucus will bridge the partisan divide and push Congress together to deliver real estate policy that will benefit soon-to-be homeowners across the country and help so many families get one step closer to fulfilling their own American Dream,” Correa said in a statement.
The group is focused on addressing the country's affordable housing crisis by increasing supply. Its announcement earned support from nearly a dozen real estate trade groups, including the National Association of Realtors, the National Multifamily Housing Council, the National Association of Home Builders, the American Land Title Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association and NAREIT.
The caucus' focus on advocating for affordable housing will help "ease stubbornly high shelter inflation, bend the housing cost curve, and provide more homeownership and rental housing opportunities," NAHB said in a statement.
Another group, the Congressional Renters Caucus, was formed in July to address the housing crisis but comes more from the tenant side. It also said its goal is to increase housing supply and affordability. But its methods are different, including seeking ways to assist cost-burdened renters and remove discriminatory and bureaucratic barriers for affordable housing. Members include representatives from New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, D.C.
Members Maxwell Frost of Florida and Jimmy Gomez of California proposed the End Junk Fees For All Act, which cracks down on landlords' application and screening fees, in July. Six days prior, the Biden Administration announced a plan to eliminate these fees, earning criticism from the real estate industry, with NMHC saying it disagrees “with the characterization that rental housing residents are pervasively being taken advantage of by housing providers.”
