Housing: Data, Research, and Technical Assistance

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

I. Overview 

State and local governments are racing to unlock new housing supply through regulatory reforms but stumbling on a knowledge gap, as 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 all 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. 

II. Problem 

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 is less than the 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 (PD&R), the agency publishes its own research and commissions research, guided by a Learning Agenda.⁵ It provides technical assistance to grantees on zoning and permitting modernization through its Office of Community Development & Planning.⁶ Differing in their administrators and mandates, these efforts fall short of their potential effectiveness if properly coordinated. 

III. Recommendations  

HUD should strengthen its data functions by:  

• scaling and improving existing surveys, including grantee data, the Census Building Permit Survey, and the Survey on Construction⁷ 

• expanding its data sources, namely by acquiring private datasets (or negotiating access on behalf of researchers), and  

• publicizing the aggregated 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,"⁸ HUD can quickly steer its research agenda toward housing supply knowledge. HUD’s research will likely be most effective if it focuses on known blind spots in academic research communities, including replication, synthesis of existing results, and research with high novelty.⁹ 

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.¹⁰  

Where jurisdictions are motivated, HUD should support their efforts to adopt proven best practices. By scaling up the PRO Housing CDBG program 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 financial means to pursue impactful reforms. Through its convenings and publications, HUD can complement these hard resource allocations with softer tools of knowledge sharing, spreading new learning and encouraging discussion among policymakers.  

Finally, HUD should designate or create a new senior staff position to oversee these reforms,¹¹ with a mandate to both act urgently and prioritize the user experience of stakeholders (i.e., researchers, other policymakers) looking to create and access knowledge. 

IV. Risks and Politics  

The public supports more government investment in “research” broadly.¹² 

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

Dissent from more ideological Members and groups may occur. Some left groups are skeptical of market-based solutions to housing challenges, identifying rent control, public housing, and antitrust as higher priorities. And while conservatives generally favor deregulation, there are opponents on the right to greater residential density and greater federal influence over lower levels of government.

Reformers can blunt critiques by emphasizing that research will not promote or coerce any type of one-size-fits-all solution across the vast diversity of local jurisdictions in the United States (e.g., variously, that it offers “carrots” but not “sticks” to conservative suburbs, and that it might enable public and affordable housing efforts in liberal cities).