Housing: Data, Research, Technical Assistance

Housing: 15-18% of GDP¹
Estimated Cost: $7.71B over 10 yrs / .11% of federal budget
Political Challenge: Low

Background and Recommendation

State and local governments around the country are attempting to expand the supply of housing in their jurisdictions through reform of land use regulations. But, as the Niskanen Center writes, the current body of research around homebuilding lacks “consensus around which regulatory changes will yield the most new units.”² With modest investments, new knowledge of what works can catalyze inclusive growth nationwide. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) many data, research, and technical assistance tools should be improved and coordinated to spur that new knowledge.

Analysis

Housing supply reforms are progressing faster than our understanding of what works. Reformers and regional planners are often left guessing, copying policies from other areas without knowing whether they will deliver results or how well they fit local needs and values.³

High-quality data and research on housing is difficult to obtain. Academic researchers and larger planning departments must often purchase expensive data sets, like market rent and lending data, from private firms. The datasets that are public are spread across agencies, among other issues, creating a digital labyrinth only the experienced can navigate comfortably.⁴

Solving data coordination problems for researchers is part of the federal playbook. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll report is used by countless economists to understand and analyze the state of the macroeconomy. 

HUD isn’t starting from zero, but its sum isn’t greater than its parts. For example, HUD collects data from grantees on an annual basis and maintains and publishes high-quality datasets.⁵ Through its Office of Policy Development & Research (OPDR), the agency publishes its own research and commissions research, guided by a Learning Agenda.⁶ It provides technical assistance to grantees on zoning and permitting modernization through its Office of Community Development & Planning.⁷ Differing in their administrators and mandates, these efforts fall short of their potential effectiveness if properly coordinated.

Recommendations

HUD should strengthen its data functions by: a) scaling and improving existing surveys, especially the Survey on Construction and Census Building Permit Survey (e.g., to include full counts of accessory dwelling units)⁸, b) expanding its data sources, including by asking for more granular zoning and permitting data (e.g., certificate of occupancy statistics) from grantees and by acquiring and aggregating private datasets (or negotiating access on behalf of researchers), and c) publicizing the results in the form of a housing dashboard and / or in easily manipulable file formats (i.e., .csv). 

HUD should elevate the supply question in its Learning Agenda. By establishing priority for its existing research question on ”what regulatory reforms are most effective at matching housing supply to demand,"⁹ HUD can steer its research agenda strongly toward housing supply knowledge. HUD’s research will be most effective in this domain if it focuses on replication and synthesis of existing results, given known blindspots in research communities.

At a higher level of ambition, HUD could begin developing a national “housing simulator.” For areas where it has sufficient data, it should match market data with local zoning and land use rules to estimate how given regulatory reforms would affect local housing supply. 

Where jurisdictions are motivated, HUD should support their efforts to adopt proven best practices. By scaling up the PRO Housing CDBG to roughly $1 billion per year, in tandem with ongoing research, HUD can ensure that even resource-limited local governments have both the knowledge and the means to pursue impactful reforms. Through its convenings and publications, HUD can complement these hard resource allocations with softer investments, spreading new knowledge and developing stronger ties among key policymakers. 

Finally, HUD should create a new senior staff position to oversee these reforms,¹⁰ with a mandate to act urgently and prioritize the user experience of stakeholders looking to create and access knowledge.

Risks and Politics 

The public supports more investment in “research” broadly.¹¹

There may be imbalanced partisan and urban/non-urban support for this recommendation. The areas most in need of new housing are typically metropolitan (or adjoining suburbs) and represented by Democrats. However, researchers have noted that the affordability problem is growing rapidly in R districts. 

That said, partisanship is an unreliable proxy for openness to housing deregulation. Some left groups are skeptical of market-based solutions and there are opponents of density, or greater federal involvement on principle, on the right. Reformers can blunt critiques by emphasizing that this proposal does not promote or coerce any type of one-size-fits-all solution across the vast diversity of local jurisdictioni in the United States (e.g., variously that public housing initiatives will benefit from land use deregulation — and that the federal government is not forcing any action from lower jurisdictions). 

Appendix

Papers for Further Reading

• To meet today’s critical housing challenges, HUD needs a broader, bolder vision (Brookings)
• A National Housing Policy Simulator: A Plan for Modeling Policy Changes to Spur New Housing Supply (FAS)
• Evaluating the Reducing Regulatory Barriers to Housing Act (Niskanen Center)

Contacts for Additional Discussion

• Ben Metcalf, Managing Director, Terner Center (ben.metcalf@berkeley.edu)
• David Garcia, Policy Director, UpForGrowth (dgarcia@upforgrowth.org)

Estimated First-order Cost Per Item and Total

Highly Relevant Legislation

• Reducing Regulatory Barriers to Housing Act (H.R. 8604 / S.4460)
• Housing Supply and Affordability Act (S.3684 / H.R.7132)

State and local governments are racing to unlock new housing supply through regulatory reforms but lack for a paved path; researchers haven't pinpointed which specific rule changes most effectively boost homebuilding. Fortunately, the federal government has the tools—data collection, research funding, and technical assistance programs focused on housing—to answer this question. With modest investments to enhance and better coordinate these capabilities, HUD could uncover and share the most powerful reform strategies, helping governments nationwide build their way to inclusive growth.

State and local governments are racing to unlock new housing supply through regulatory reforms but lack for a paved path; researchers haven't pinpointed which specific rule changes most effectively boost homebuilding.¹ Fortunately, the federal government has the tools—data collection, research funding, and technical assistance programs focused on housing—to answer this question. With modest investments to enhance and better coordinate these capabilities, HUD could uncover and share the most powerful reform strategies, helping governments nationwide build their way to inclusive growth.

State and local governments are racing to unlock new housing supply through regulatory reforms but lack for a paved path; researchers haven't pinpointed which specific rule changes most effectively boost homebuilding. Fortunately, the federal government has the tools—data collection, research funding, and technical assistance programs focused on housing—to answer this question. With modest investments to enhance and better coordinate these capabilities, HUD could uncover and share the most powerful reform strategies, helping governments nationwide build their way to inclusive growth.

State and local governments are racing to unlock new housing supply through regulatory reforms but lack for a paved path; researchers haven't pinpointed which specific rule changes most effectively boost homebuilding. Fortunately, the federal government has the tools—data collection, research funding, and technical assistance programs focused on housing—to answer this question. With modest investments to enhance and better coordinate these capabilities, HUD could uncover and share the most powerful reform strategies, helping governments nationwide build their way to inclusive growth.²

Background and Recommendation

State and local governments are racing to unlock new housing supply through regulatory reforms but lack for a paved path; researchers haven't pinpointed which specific rule changes most effectively boost homebuilding.¹ Fortunately, the federal government has the tools—data collection, research funding, and technical assistance programs focused on housing—to answer this question. With modest investments to enhance and better coordinate these capabilities, HUD could uncover and share the most powerful reform strategies, helping governments nationwide build their way to inclusive growth.

Analysis

Housing supply reforms are progressing faster than our understanding of what works. Reformers and regional planners are often left guessing, copying policies from other areas without knowing whether they will deliver results or how well they fit local needs and values.²

High-quality data and research on housing is difficult for other stakeholders to obtain. Academic researchers and larger planning departments must often purchase expensive data sets, like market rent and lending data, from private firms. The datasets that are public are spread across agencies, among other issues, creating a digital labyrinth only the experienced can navigate comfortably.³

Solving data coordination problems for researchers is part of the federal playbook. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll report is used by countless economists to understand and analyze the state of the macroeconomy. 

HUD isn’t starting from zero, but the sum of its efforts isn’t greater than its parts. For example, HUD collects data from grantees on an annual basis and maintains and publishes high-quality datasets.^[4] Through its Office of Policy Development & Research (OPDR), the