Advocacy Priorities

NAHB fights for our members on Capitol Hill, in state houses and in the communities where our members do business. Key NAHB advocacy priorities include the following.

Housing Affordability

Addressing ongoing housing affordability concerns remains a top issue for home builders. Due to the complexity and nationwide scope of the problem, NAHB is looking to the White House and Congress to play a constructive role in helping to craft practical solutions and put them in place.

Regulatory Reform

On average, 23.8 percent of the price of building a typical new single-family home — almost $94,000 — is due to government regulation.

Meanwhile, government regulation accounts for more than 30% of the cost of an average multifamily development.

NAHB firmly believes that efforts to further regulate the housing industry must:

• Be subject to greater oversight
• Allow for increased public participation in the process
• Be based on sound data
• Only be undertaken after careful consideration of the costs and benefits as well as the potential effects on small businesses.

Housing Finance Reform

NAHB is a strong proponent of housing finance reform that would increase the role of private capital in the U.S. housing finance system but maintain a limited federal backstop to the nation’s housing finance system.

Federal support is particularly important in continuing the availability of the affordable 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, which has been a staple of the U.S. housing finance system.

Labor Shortage/Immigration Reform

NAHB supports comprehensive immigration reform that will:

• Safeguard our borders;
• Establish a fair employment verification system; and
• Create a market-based visa system that will allow more immigrants to legally enter the construction workforce as the housing industry gains momentum and the demand for workers increases.

Environment

NAHB supports a common sense, scientific approach to safeguarding the environment that reasonably balances protection of endangered species, clean air and clean water, with the need to allow local communities to grow and thrive.

Trade

The trade war on lumber, steel, aluminum and other imported materials is needlessly pushing up housing costs. NAHB urges Congress to call on the administration to return to the table and negotiate a new Softwood Lumber Agreement with Canada and to resolve the trade dispute with China.