The Untold Congressional Impact on U.S. Homeownership

Should members of Congress get credit for helping you achieve the goal of homeownership, or blame for locking you out of today’s competitive, unaffordable market? A new Tuesday report from Realtor.com finds that congressional policymakers hold far more sway over the U.S. housing market than is immediately obvious. Over the past 160 years, five landmark federal laws drove the most significant, lasting surges in the national homeownership rate.

But it has been decades since Congress passed legislation that moved the needle this dramatically. Today’s housing market, which faces a nationwide shortage of roughly 4 million homes, is still waiting for federal policy to unlock similar progress.

“Homeownership has never been shaped by market forces alone,” Joel Berner, senior economist at Austin-based Realtor.com, said in a statement. “At every major turning point in U.S. history—from the Great Depression and World War II, to the Civil Rights era and the 2008 financial crisis—Congress has stepped in to reshape who can buy a home, and how they can afford it.”

According to Berner, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act— which finally cleared Congress last week with overwhelming bipartisan support—could be the next example of federal legislation that helps Americans reach their homeownership dreams. The bill includes a host of provisions targeted directly at growing the national housing supply, a change that could ultimately open the door to ownership for more U.S. households.

“We don’t anticipate a sudden major jump in homeownership, especially not right away,” Berner told Fast Company in an exclusive interview. “But the bill has the potential to ease some of the downward pressure on homeownership rates by ramping up home production and making it easier to connect prospective buyers to available properties.”

As of today, roughly 65% of American households own their home, per data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Decades of Waiting for Federal Relief

Earlier generations of homebuyers benefited enormously from impactful federal housing legislation, but Millennials have spent years waiting for congressional action to clear a more accessible path to ownership. Berner tells Fast Company that younger Americans have every right to feel frustrated by the federal government’s long-running lack of intervention to solve the chronic underbuilding crisis that has persisted in the U.S. for more than a decade.