Housing Supply
Housing costs are rising because supply has not kept pace with demand. Current federal, state, and local priorities emphasize expanding housing supply, reducing barriers to production, lowering costs, and unlocking homeownership—while protecting taxpayer dollars and improving program performance. Abt helps public agencies and partners move from diagnosis to delivery by combining rigorous evidence, practical tools, and implementation support. We support strategies that accelerate permitting and development timelines, remove barriers to new starter homes, improve capital stack efficiency, strengthen local housing plans, and ensure subsidy programs operate effectively and transparently. Our work spans research and evaluation, policy and regulatory support, technical assistance, and data systems—so communities can scale what works and deliver more homes, faster.
Expertise
- Housing market diagnostics
- Zoning and permitting reform
- Development cost drivers
- Housing finance strategies
- Program performance evaluation
- Implementation technical assistance
Clients Include
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Rhode Island Department of Housing
Washington Department of Commerce
Washington State Housing Finance Commission
Wyoming Community Development Authority
Virginia Housing
National Council of State Housing Agencies
National Urban League
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
JP Morgan Chase Foundation
United Way of Greater Los Angeles
Our Work
Online guide to local housing policy for cities around the U.S. to create comprehensive and balanced local housing strategies
Analysis of the factors driving affordable multifamily rental housing development costs under the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program nationwide.
Assessment of how states could build affordable housing under the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program amid COVID-19 supply chain gaps
Mixed-methods evaluation of federal incentives for landlords to lease more units to tenants under the Housing Choice Voucher Program
Abt developed a strategic housing action plan, story map, and tool that will help Wyoming implement solutions for its housing affordability challenges.
Abt is merging databases with information on rental housing results from low-income housing tax credits to inform decision-making.
Our Experts
Insights
Through the Roof: What Communities Can Do About the High Cost of Rental Housing in America
This report from Abt’s Jeffrey Lubell and others shows what U.S. localities can do to mitigate the rising cost of rental housing.
Beyond Zoning Reform: 4 Ways States Can Boost Their Housing Supply
Here are four ways that state and local leaders can support more affordable housing that go beyond zoning reform.
Preserving, Protecting, and Expanding Affordable Housing: A Policy Toolkit for Public Health
The toolkit provides information on housing market trends and research on the links between rising housing costs and poor health outcomes. It identifies strategies across six policy areas to help ensure that households of all incomes have housing options in the areas where they want to live. The policy areas are preservation, protection, inclusion, revenue generation, incentives, and property acquisition.
Variation in Development Costs for LIHTC Projects
This report examines the factors affecting the cost of developing affordable multifamily rental housing with the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program (LIHTC). Using data provided by 14 LIHTC syndicators for more than 2,500 projects, that include more than 160,000 housing units, we analyze the factors associated with higher and lower per-unit development costs. We find that the per-unit cost of development decreases as development size increases and the average annual construction wage decreases. We also found that the following factors were associated with higher development costs: location in the principal city of a metro area (as opposed to a suburban or rural location), new construction (as opposed to acquisition/rehab), use of multiple financing sources and location in New England, the Mid-Atlantic or Pacific regions.As noted in the report, there are important tradeoffs involved in developing affordable housing across the United States. For example:Projects cost more to build in high-cost areas, but affordable housing is needed in these locations as much as--or even more than--in lower-cost areas.Smaller projects cost more to build on a per-unit basis than larger projects, but larger projects are not desirable in all locations.Smaller units cost less to build but are not appropriate for all household types.
Filling Funding Gaps: How State Agencies Are Moving to Meet a Growing Threat to Affordable Housing
On behalf of NCSHA, Abt studied how 11 state agencies are impacted by—and handling—potentially catastrophic rising costs on affordable housing projects.
Wyoming’s Plan to Promote Housing and Economic Development
Abt developed a strategic housing action plan, story map, and tool that will help Wyoming implement solutions for its housing affordability challenges.
Implementation—A Critical Step in Ensuring Housing Policy Success
In his essay for Housing Policy Debate, Abt's Jeffrey Lubell writes about the issue of how to build the capacity of local government to implement stronger and more effective housing policies and programs. He focuses on two areas that illustrate key implementation challenges: Developing comprehensive and effective local housing strategies;Helping housing subsidy recipients make progress toward economic security.
Mortgage Journeys: Identifying New Homebuyer Challenges
Fannie Mae had conducted extensive research with various groups of consumers (e.g., renters, young adults, delinquent borrowers, homeowners, refinancers, etc.), including several survey research projects to examine how consumers shop for mortgages. To…
How Can State Housing Finance Agencies Improve Energy Efficiency?
Two reports provide insight on ways state housing finance agencies can advance affordable housing through energy efficiency efforts.
Studying Outcomes of the Low-income Housing Tax Credit program
More than 2 million units of rental housing have been developed through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, making it the largest housing production program in U.S. history. As thousands of properties hit the 15-year mark—ending the…