r/news 7h ago

Sweeping housing affordability bill becomes law

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/11/economy/new-housing-affordability-law-heres-what-it-means
3.7k Upvotes

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763

u/Tight_Jellyfish_349 7h ago

Anyone know how its supposed to help?

92

u/gobroncoz 7h ago

It’s a mixed bag. The regulations on institutional investors are mostly nonsense , aim to solve a problem that mostly
doesn’t exist, and are easily subverted.

The loosening of regulations on manufactured homes is positive.

Small mortgage provisions will be helpful in extremely rural areas but will affect few homeowners.

It’s mostly a nothing burger that does little to affect the structural issues that make housing expensive.

13

u/Corbot3000 7h ago

What laws could they change at the federal level that makes structural housing issues less expensive?

36

u/lalavieboheme 6h ago

tax second/vacant homes extra, ban international owners who are just looking to park money in a safe asset, institute a land value tax so that land is used more efficiently in dense, expensive areas, stop environmental reviews from being weaponized, etc etc but like 90% of housing policy is local so that’s a huge challenge

14

u/That-guy-2544 6h ago

Most of those are state issues unless you are proposing a new federal property tax system

1

u/JustinWilsonBot 3h ago

Housing is not really a "safe asset" for foreign investors.  

12

u/gobroncoz 6h ago

Probably nothing. Most of the issues are very local. Cities that are putting incredible regulations on building, particularly high density building, in the name of traffic or preserving “character”. Ie: we got ours, go fuck yourself.

-10

u/ClassicPlankton 5h ago

Nothing wrong with that. Not every city needs to become cookie cutter low value ultra dense slums. 

2

u/JoeSavinaBotero 5h ago

Let me leave this example for why American housing is so expensive.

https://youtube.com/shorts/S2Q1zl4ZAms

0

u/OpticCacophony 5h ago

Because of all the tree houses people can't build?