Senator Hassan Highlights Ways to Expand New Hampshire Housing Options
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) today highlighted ways to expand housing access in New Hampshire and across the country, including through building new homes and cutting taxes for new homeowners, during a Senate Finance Committee hearing.
Watch Senator Hassan’s questioning here
Senator Hassan began by discussing the need for more housing options in the Granite State, sharing that “In New Hampshire, I hear from families and small businesses alike about the burden of rising housing costs and what that has done to their ability to live and work in the state.”
Senator Hassan then went on to highlight a package of housing legislation that she is working to introduce that would bring down housing costs by incentivizing investments in state affordable housing trust funds and increasing support for new housing construction.
Witness Andrea Bell, Executive Director of Oregon Housing and Community Services, commended Senator Hassan’s leadership on the bill and shared that Oregon is one of 39 states that has a State Housing Trust Fund. These trust funds “can be particularly helpful in providing additional housing resources for state needs,” said Bell.
Senator Hassan went on to share that “My bill would also support the construction of new workforce housing, creating a new competitive grant program at HUD [Department of Housing and Urban Development].”
When asked about how building more housing will help lower costs for homebuyers, Jerry Konter, the Founder and President of Konter Quality Homes and Chairman of the Board for the National Association of Homebuilders, stated that “The crux of the problem is very simple. We’re just not building enough houses. The more houses we build, the less pressure we have on rising costs because we are supplying the market.”
“I’d also note that the more housing we have and the more people who are housed, the more other issues that we all work on together we can address,” Senator Hassan added.
Senator Hassan previously introduced bipartisan legislation with Senator Blunt to provide tax cuts for middle-class homebuyers who use mortgage insurance.
During the hearing, Senator Hassan asked Benson Roberts, President and CEO of the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, about how mortgage insurance makes homeownership more accessible.
“Private mortgage insurance is very important so that homebuyers who don’t have 20% down payment funds can get in,” Roberts said. “That's much more attainable for first time buyers, and so cutting the cost of that mortgage insurance is very important to making sure they can afford the monthly payments as well.”
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