With mortgage rates at decade-high levels and home prices continuing to increase, the federal government has explored several options to help decrease the economic burden on American families and individuals.
According to Yahoo Finance Live, in regard to the housing sector, White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein states that the executive branch would need help from Congress in order to pursue the most effective relief options.
“Yes, we can help increase the supply of affordable housing through some of our administrative actions, working with our housing department, as well as FHA, but we really need legislation,” said Bernstein. “From our perspective, what’s most important is increasing the supply of affordable housing,” he said. “And again, we have a robust plan to do so. We need congressional help on that one.”
Data from Zillow revealed that monthly mortgage payments on the typical U.S. home increased by 19.5% in the first three months of the year, signaling an abnormally high rate of growth. “Bottom half housing is very hard to pencil out in this environment without a low income housing tax credit, without some of the credits and grants that we’ve proposed,” Bernstein said.
President Biden unveiled his plan to combat inflation ahead of the release of April’s consumer price index report; in it, he discussed possible solutions for slowing inflation. Most of the methods in the proposal, including increasing the nation’s housing supply, would require legislative action.
The White House recommended that Congress invest in “building more than 1 million affordable homes, including through a set of tax credits that have received bipartisan support,” in order to help lower inflation. The proposal also advocated for “expanding and improving” federal financing for the construction of new housing and using existing federal funding to eliminate barriers for creating new homes.
“The key point, without getting into too much of that granularity, is that we are acutely aware of the stressors on family budgets,” Bernstein said. “This is a president who grew up in a family that dealt with these issues every day. And so we’re doing all we can to help.”
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