Editors at National Review Online pan legislation on Capitol Hill addressing housing issues.
Congress couldn’t help but get in its own way. What began as a good faith, bipartisan effort to make housing more affordable has mutated into legislation that would prevent more new home construction than it would encourage. Let us review how we got here.
Lawmakers are right to see housing as an issue of great national importance. Since the pandemic, the median sales price of an American home has surged by close to 30 percent. Rising home prices have outpaced both incomes and overall inflation for decades. Mortgage rates — which were the lowest ever recorded from 2020 to 2022 — have returned to historically moderate levels. Together, these developments have made buying a house less affordable than at any point since the 1980s.
The high cost of housing is why young Americans feel locked out of homeownership. In 2025, the share of home purchases by first-time buyers fell to 21 percent, a historic low. The housing market is increasingly dominated by existing homeowners trading among themselves, many of whom have built up enough equity to forgo expensive financing.
Many younger families never got to grab the first rung of the homeownership ladder, so they have to keep renting instead. But the rental market has its own affordability troubles. Prices have outpaced inflation there as well, and half of all renter households spend more than 30 percent of their income on shelter.
The fundamental problem with the U.S. housing market is a structural shortage of units,both rental and owner-occupied. A supply-side dilemma needs a supply-side solution, so further stimulating demand through cheaper credit or extended mortgage terms won’t work. True affordability can only be achieved by allowing millions more homes to be built in towns and cities across the country.
