The Problem
Affordability challenges in the United States are structural, not cyclical. They result from misaligned policies across population growth, housing, labor, and investment.
The Core Imbalance
Housing costs have risen faster than wages for decades. This is not a temporary market condition. It reflects too many people competing for too few homes, with foreign capital and institutional investors bidding against American families for the housing that does exist.
No single reform can fix this. The crisis has five distinct structural causes, each documented below, and each addressed by a specific policy in the Act.
Five Structural Challenges
Each maps to one policy in the ActPopulation Growth Exceeding Housing Capacity
Immigration is set without reference to housing. When population growth outpaces construction, prices rise regardless of anything else. The inflow more than doubled after 1990, and nothing ties it to how many homes exist.
- -Over 1.17 million green cards issued in FY2023 alone[2]
- -No mechanism ties inflows to housing availability
Institutional Investors Buying Up Homes
Corporations now buy single-family homes at scale as financial assets, turning the market into a contest between families and Wall Street. They pay cash, close fast, and concentrate in the same starter markets where first-time buyers compete.
Share of single-family rentals investor-owned
Source: GAO-24-106643[4]
Foreign Capital Outbidding American Families
Non-residents buy U.S. homes as investment and safe-haven assets. This capital competes directly with families for limited stock and pays cash far more often, a decisive edge in a bidding war.
Immigration Suppressing Wages and Raising Costs
More people means more demand for everything, while guest-worker programs flood specific labor markets with below-market workers. The H-1B program, dominated by staffing firms, is the clearest case of wage arbitrage displacing American workers.
- -Staffing firms use H-1B for labor arbitrage, not talent
- -Real wages stagnate as living costs rise
Local Zoning Blocking Construction
Even when demand and capital exist, local rules stop homes from being built. Restrictive zoning, slow permitting, and layered fees create artificial scarcity. Regulation alone accounts for nearly a quarter of the price of a new home.
- -Single-family-only zoning blocks density
- -Permitting adds years and cost to every project
See the Solution
Five straightforward policies, each aimed at one of these structural causes.
View the ActSources
- Migration Policy Institute: Legal Immigration to the United States, 1820-Present - Annual LPR admission data; pre-1990 immigration averages
- DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics: Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, Table 1 (2023) - Persons obtaining lawful permanent resident status, FY 1820-2023
- National Association of Realtors: International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate (2024-2025) - Foreign buyer purchase data, payment methods, and geographic distribution
- U.S. Government Accountability Office: Rental Housing - Institutional Investment in Single-Family Homes (2024) - Institutional investor ownership data and market concentration
- Economic Policy Institute: H-1B Visas and Prevailing Wage Levels - 60% of H-1B positions certified at below-median wages; 17-34% wage gap
- Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies: The State of the Nation's Housing 2024 - Housing shortage estimate and price-to-income ratio
- National Association of Home Builders: Government Regulation in the Price of a New Home - Regulation accounts for 23.8% of the price of a new single-family home