Housing Policy – Cantilever Real Estate

Wyoming refund exposes legal risk for local housing fee ordinances

March 16, 2026 by bp56691

Small wins on impact fees occasionally occur in costly U.S. housing markets. Teton County, Wyoming, officials agreed last week to refund a $24,325 “affordable workforce housing” fee that a homeowner had to pay to obtain a permit to build a single-family home. The payment settles a lawsuit the homeowner filed last year in a Wyoming […]

Housing muni market swells amid affordability policy debate

March 16, 2026 by bp56691

Financing affordable housing development – typically for lower-income households – is one of the most challenging matters in real estate. Making the economics work on a deal requires layered “hard and soft” funding sources as developers navigate rising costs, policy instability, and structural gaps in the subsidy system. The process is so complicated that professionals […]

Trump executive order targets regulatory barriers to homebuilding

March 13, 2026 by bp56691

The White House announced on Friday afternoon its effort to challenge what it calls “unnecessary regulatory barriers” to homebuilding by issuing a broad executive order to reduce environmental, permitting and programmatic restrictions that federal officials say are contributing to the nation’s housing affordability crisis. The order, signed by Donald Trump, directs multiple federal agencies to […]

Congress nears a housing deal and the investor fight is inside it

March 11, 2026 by bp56691

Congress is closing in on a major housing legislation moment. The bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, now moving from the Senate to House reconciliation after overwhelming procedural votes, stands as one of the most serious attempts in more than a generation to confront America’s housing affordability crisis. With the ballast of provisions aimed at […]

Local fees trap state housing affordability reforms in a vicious circle

March 8, 2026 by bp56691

Procedural and zoning barriers are proving to be only the beginning of the gauntlet for adding new ground-up residential supply to America’s housing-starved communities. While removing red tape and outdated zoning laws might formalize more homes on paper, local fee structures still decide whether those homes are actually built. California is a poster child for […]

New York’s housing crisis won’t be solved by one mega-project

March 4, 2026 by bp56691

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s attempt to revive an old plan to build 12,000 affordable units over a borough railyard is seen as a long shot, even if he gains support from President Trump. Mamdani has garnered headline attention for proposing to build units on a platform above Sunnyside Yard, a 180-acre freight and […]

Housing leaders say Trump’s plan must go deeper than lower mortgage rates

February 25, 2026 by bp56691

Industry leaders said Trump’s address left housing affordability largely unaddressed, with more focus on tariffs and investor restrictions.

Gov. Pritzker calls for zoning reform to buoy Illinois housing access

February 19, 2026 by bp56691

Illinois state lawmakers took up housing affordability last year. The results underwhelmed. Now, Gov. J.B. Pritzker is pushing to put housing at the center of Illinois’ broader affordability agenda. “The problem is clear – rent is too high and home ownership is too far out of reach,” Pritzker said in his State of the State […]

Why antitrust talk may be a pressure tactic — not a probe —against homebuilders

February 7, 2026 by bp56691

A Friday-morning news report suggesting that the Trump administration is exploring an antitrust probe into U.S. homebuilders landed with its intended shock value. The implication? Washington, having rattled its saber, may be preparing to treat large builders as a concentrated market actor whose behavior is contributing to America’s housing affordability crisis. By late Friday afternoon, […]

Policy clash: how two housing policies blend to price out millions

January 26, 2026 by bp56691

It goes with the insanity of today’s U.S. housing affordability crisis that two rights can make a wrong. Two federal policies — each designed to lower the lifetime operating cost of owning a home — can instead combine to raise the barrier to entry so high that millions of households never get through the front […]