One of the country’s research giants is touting a housing bill for its potential to transform homeownership accessibility through just one tiny change.
The Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream to Housing Act paves the way for more factory-made homes, according to an article the Pew Research Center published Monday. If approved as written, a section of the legislation would eliminate the requirement for modular residences — homes built in factories and then set on a property — to have a chassis or framing that allows the structure to be relocated, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit think tank noted.
Researchers found that only 5% to 7% of manufactured residences need the chassis and that giving developers the option to forgo it could streamline production and reduce home prices by about $10,000.
“Updates to chassis requirements and titling rules would help to ensure that manufactured homes are treated like other single-family homes and are eligible for mortgages," Dennis Su and Rachel Siegel, researchers at The Pew Charitable Trusts’ housing policy initiative, said in the report. "Improving policies across the board would help to expand the use of manufactured housing to better meet the needs of American families and boost its role in addressing the nation’s housing shortage.”
The change is one piece of a massive housing-focused bill Senators Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, and Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, have spearheaded.
The Senate passed the bill in a 77-20 vote in October. The ROAD Act heads to the House of Representatives as soon as the shutdown officially ends.