HUD releases regulatory best practices to unleash building and increase homeownership across America

Washington, DC The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released the State and Local Best Practices for Home Construction Report, a series of regulatory actions for state and local governments to increase efficiency and ease regulatory barriers to housing construction and affordability.

“HUD is encouraging our state and local partners to take inventory of their regulations and policies and make changes that will lower the cost to build and enable more efficient housing supply growth. These best practices are an initial list of recommendations to facilitate growth while respecting communities’ unique needs. Adding efficiency to local building processes will result in more affordable homeownership opportunities for all Americans,” said HUD secretary Scott Turner.

The report provides a clear starting point for all state and local governments to begin or continue an active effort to remove unnecessary burdens to home construction. Best practices are sorted into three categories:

• Cut home construction costs

• Unlock land for new housing supply

• Accelerate construction timelines

Regulatory costs account for more than $100,000 of the final price of a new single-family home, and green energy mandates in some states’ and localities’ building codes can add up to $30,000 to the cost of construction. Overall, deregulation efforts in 2025 are projected to save Americans a collective $212 billion.

These state and local best practices for home construction are part of HUD’s ongoing actions to implement President Trump’s Executive Order 14394, Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction, which is restoring housing affordability and helping families forge pathways to homeownership.

Since President Trump took office last year, HUD has taken actions to make the American dream of homeownership more attainable for Americans including:

• Rescinding the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC),

• Ending the Obama-Biden-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule,

• Rescinding rules within its Federal Housing Administration (FHA) single-family mortgage insurance program,

• Supporting homeownership and housing affordability for more than one million Americans, including more than half a million first-time homebuyers.