For many Americans, homeownership is starting to feel like an increasingly distant milestone.
For many Americans, homeownership is starting to feel like an increasingly distant milestone. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate crossed 7% this week, and experts warn it could climb even higher in the months ahead — a development that's landing hard with voters already stretched thin by rising costs.
Polling continues to show that housing affordability ranks among the most pressing concerns for Americans nationwide.
"People are stressed the hell out every time they have to go to the grocery store, every time they have to pay the rent or mortgage," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Wednesday.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development hosted a showcase on the National Mall this week aimed at putting forward potential solutions. HUD Secretary Scott Turner said his agency is backing programs designed to train more young people in skilled trades while also pushing to bring more manufactured housing to the market.
"These houses go to the market quicker. A manufactured house is almost half the price of a stick-built house," Turner said. "There's about 22 million Americans that live in manufactured homes around our country. So you take the innovativeness, you take the speed to market, the reduction in price that it takes to build these houses."
Some of the homes on display at the event were assembled in less than a day, and housing advocates say that kind of speed and efficiency will be critical to bringing overall costs down.
"We need to increase the number of housing units we build in this country. How do we address the bottlenecks or the largest obstacles to that, and maximize job site labor, because that's one of the biggest... it's probably the most effective tool we have to lowering the cost of housing," said Sean Shields of the Structural Building Components Association.
Turner also pointed to the administration's deregulatory efforts as evidence that HUD is making progress, even as broader economic headwinds continue to work against affordability.
"The deregulatory actions that we're taking, bringing supply up, bringing the cost down — we all know that mortgage rates are higher. We all know that inflation is higher. But the actions that we have been taking and are taking cannot be denied. And people are buying homes in our country," Turner said. "Do we want more Americans to buy homes? Yes. That's why we're here. That's why we're at this innovative housing showcase. That's why we're taking the actions that we are to help."
Still, rising inflation and higher interest rates continue to complicate HUD's messaging on affordability. Looking ahead to the 2028 presidential race, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, seen as a potential Democratic contender, said that whoever the party nominates will need to make lowering the cost of homeownership a central part of their platform — a sign of just how central the housing issue has become for voters heading into future elections.
