Congress passed an affordable housing package. What can it do for Georgia?

Proponents of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act say it’s the most significant effort to address housing in decades. Critics say the bill doesn’t go far enough.

“This bill does a lot of different things, but it really doesn’t get at the most essential problem, which is the lack of affordability,” said Alex Schwartz, emeritus professor for The New School for Social Research in New York. “It’s almost all regulatory in nature.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed several stakeholders, including local affordable housing advocates, to get their take on the housing bill’s strengths and challenges.

Urban housing chief

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

DeKalb County Chief Housing Officer Alan Ferguson says economic challenges, including a rise in rent and home prices and a lack of new construction after the pandemic, have put the county at a critical point.

“We’re not just talking about an affordable housing crisis, we’re talking about a housing crisis,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson said he views the bill as positive, in part, because it gives local governments more ways to tackle affordability challenges.

For example, he noted one change would allow local governments to use money from an affordable-housing grant program to pay for housing-related infrastructure projects.

“That’s a really, really big deal for us,” Ferguson said. “We’ve got a lot of areas in DeKalb County that could be developed, but they don’t have adequate access to sewer.”

Among other efforts, the legislation also aims to speed up environmental reviews, which could shave months off the process.

“Anybody involved in this space of creating housing affordability knows that time literally means money,” Ferguson said.

Rural mayor

The city of Fitzgerald, a town of roughly 9,000 residents about a 40-minute drive northeast of Tifton, saw its first $1 million homes go on the market this year. The community also has plenty of subsidized housing for families with little or no income.

But Mayor Jason Holt is most concerned about those in the middle — the teachers, factory workers, firefighters and police officers — who want to live in town but can’t afford to purchase homes.

“If you just got a job making $35,000 a year, that’s almost a full-year salary just for the down payment that gets you in the door to start the mortgage, so that can be a huge barrier to somebody,” he said. “I think some of those provisions are going to really help getting the homebuyer access to the financing.”

Holt said he wished the bill included more programs targeting rural areas, which often lose grant dollars to bigger cities that are better able to navigate the federal bureaucracy.

But he said he is excited about a grant program that would help pay for renovations to historic homes. Another would allow cities and counties to pay for infrastructure for new developments, like sewer lines or roads, instead of passing that cost along to homeowners.

Community banking

Credit: Estela Muñoz/AJC

Credit: Estela Muñoz/AJC

The legislation would also loosen regulations for community banks, aiming to strengthen their role in housing.

Today, traditional banks originate a third of mortgages, industry leaders say. That’s because strict regulations following the Great Recession have made it more costly for banks to offer mortgages.

The bill would change how regulators categorize certain deposits, which could free up money for banks to make loans. It would also make it easier for people to start new banks.

Tripp Cofield, president and CEO of the Georgia Bankers Association, called the legislation “a legitimate attempt to help ease some of the regulatory burden on banks and provide greater access to the tools they need,” adding it could help expand access to mortgage products and services.

The legislation could also make more loans available to homebuilders and developers, said David Oliver, the association’s chief operating officer.

Corporate ownership

Credit: Estela Muñoz/AJC

Credit: Estela Muñoz/AJC

A closely watched provision would limit large companies or investment funds from owning more than 350 single-family homes at one time. However, the bill does not force these companies to sell off homes they own after seven years.

Still, the new regulations could be significant in metro Atlanta, which leads the country in Wall Street-owned single-family rental homes, with about 72,000, according to a recent report.

Institutional investors contend they help communities and expand housing supply. But critics say the firms can outcompete families in the market for homes. Some investors have also faced complaints over maintenance issues and treatment of tenants.

“The political target is institutions competing with individual buyers for existing homes, and that concern is legitimate,” said Eugene James, chief market strategist for MarketNsight, an Atlanta-based housing data research and consulting firm.

But builders also rely on institutional buyers to purchase surplus inventory that others have passed on, particularly when margins tighten, James said.

“That bulk-sale option is a real safety valve that keeps builders building,” he said. “A cap that doesn’t distinguish between those two very different transactions could have unintended consequences for new supply.”

Local homebuilders

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Local homebuilders said the obstacles they face are not at the federal level, but with local governments.

The federal legislation encourages local governments to change housing policies. But Schwartz said those changes, including building more apartments and duplexes to increase density, could be opposed by residents.

Jim Jacobi, president and founder of the private real estate development and investment firm Parkland Communities and the build-to-rent firm Parkland Residential, said some of his biggest challenges are local moratoriums on new construction.

He said more than 20 Georgia counties and cities either have or have had moratoriums since January 2025.

“The local regulations are holding back future supply,” he said.

Jay Knight, director of acquisitions for Fayetteville-based Templar Development, echoed those concerns. Permit delays in recent years led him to help start the Georgia Residential Land Development Council, which is advocating for policy changes.

“I just don’t know that it accomplishes really much of anything,” Knight said of the federal legislation.

“I think the concern of us in the industry is we see this as the beginning of the conversation, and the concern is that the lawmakers see this as the end,” he said. “I think there’s a disconnect there.”

Affordable housing advocates

Credit: Estela Muñoz/AJC

Credit: Estela Muñoz/AJC

Affordable housing advocates said they were encouraged to see both Democrats and Republicans vote for the bill.

“It’s a great step in the right direction of getting the federal government, which really has been silenced for decades on housing, to be more focused and supportive of us,” said Frank Fernandez, president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta.

John O’Callaghan, president and CEO of Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, a nonprofit that develops and finances affordable housing across metro Atlanta, said the bill mostly cleans up regulations and makes existing programs work better. But he said he was encouraged by the provisions around community banking.

“This needs to be another stop in bipartisan efforts on housing,” he said.