Easier Said Than Done

Some things truly are “easier said than done,” like confronting a difficult situation, swearing off fast food … and solving the housing supply and affordability crisis.

If anything came out of the 2nd annual National Housing Supply Summit (NHSS) last month, it was that there are a lot of great ideas and helpful tools to boost production and make homes more attainable, but executing them at an impactful scale is the trick.

Regulatory reform was a pervasive theme at the Summit, but how and where to go about it—and be successful enough to move the needle—is complicated and fraught. Federal reforms help some, but the real work (and impact) is at the state and local level.

As any builder who crosses county lines knows, the rules are often different from one jurisdiction to another, and each local authority is protective of its approach—and needs compelling reasons to streamline the bureaucracy and integrate new technologies. What’s in it for them?

And while there are solid, meaningful examples of industry and government collaborations that chip away at excessive, inefficient, and costly red tape (see California’s law pausing updates to its residential energy codes for six years, as well as local allowances for “by right” development without discretionary approvals), that’s the base camp at the bottom of a very tall mountain.

And some fights simply aren’t worth fighting, or counter-intuitive to reality, such a suggestion to make energy efficiency and built resilience optional upgrades instead of standard features.

No doubt it costs more to build and buy a home to meet current code standards, and certainly to go above code, but the outcome is a home that’s more affordable to operate, not to mention healthier and safer, which also lowers those costs for consumers.

Making those features optional also would disrupt an embedded infrastructure of innovation and SKUs. Consider the progress made in products and systems, building practices, and heightened consumer awareness and expectations underpinned by established, recognized programs such as Energy Star, including one created by the housing industry itself. Good luck turning that aircraft carrier with any speed.

One idea that drew me in (among several at NHSS) was to aggregate small-volume builders to redevelop scattered-lot and infill parcels of abandoned and condemned homes and non-residential buildings into new, high-density housing.

The effect would (at least) help reduce AD&C financing roadblocks by aggregating volume and risk across multiple players and projects while boosting supply. By one presenter’s account, there are 6 million homes across this country ripe for teardown, more than even the most liberal estimate of the housing supply gap.

And then there’s the question of what to build to make housing attainable. Smaller, denser detached homes and townhouses, or full-on multifamily? Will Gen Zers and Gen Alphas want or need a front porch, their own driveway and garage, or a yard? We said the same about Millennials … until they got jobs and kids and flipped their script.

Even so, is the 3-and-2 model outdated, if not obsolete? And is building different—both what is offered and how it is produced—worth the risk to the profitability of fewer, larger, higher-priced, stick-built homes, as long as there are buyers for them? Can we influence or expect a consumer mind shift to smaller homes and higher densities, and to move into and then upwardly within a mixed-use master plan? 

Easier said than done.

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• We're looking for topics and speakers for the 2026 Women in Residential Constuction Conference, a live online event on September 29 and 30. probuilder.com/events/women-in-residential-construction