Rising housing costs and limited supply have made it harder for millions of Americans to find housing they can afford. Meeting this challenge requires coordinated action across government, private sector, and nonprofit organizations.

The JPMorganChase PolicyCenter's Building Blocks: State and Local Opportunities to Increase Housing Supply series highlights practical, evidence-based actions that help expand housing supply and improve access to homeownership.

Each brief will examine a distinct lever, from regulatory reform to construction innovation, and offers real-world examples to guide state and local leaders. These recommendations reinforce one another to strengthen the conditions needed to expand housing supply and improve affordability.

Featured briefs

Brief 1: Reducing regulatory barriers to expand housing supply

Up to 40% of multifamily and 25% of single-family development costs can come from state and local regulatory compliance, slowing production and driving up prices. The first paper in the series examines how complex and fragmented regulatory environments limit the type, quantity, and location of housing production, as well as opportunities to remove unnecessary complexities and streamline approval processes.

This brief highlights three evidence-based reforms to help unlock supply:

  • Reform land use and zoning rules to allow more types of housing, including “missing middle” options like townhomes and duplexes
  • Update building codes to support faster, more cost-effective construction while maintaining safety and quality
  • Streamline permitting to improve transparency, speed up timelines, and reduce delays

Brief 2: Unlocking housing affordability through innovative construction

Construction costs represent an estimated 64% of home prices in recent analyses, and high labor and material costs are deepening the affordability gap. The second paper examines how innovations in homebuilding—manufactured, modular, panelized, and other industrialized methods—can help address part of the affordability and supply gap.

This brief highlights three evidence-based reforms to help unlock supply:

  • Create an enabling regulatory environment that aligns land use and zoning, building codes, and inspection processes to put off-site and site-built housing on equal footing.
  • Increase public incentives that reduce financing friction, aggregate demand, and support multi-year pipelines to promote scale.
  • Build implementation capacity by training plan reviewers and inspectors, expanding the workforce, and developing a credible evidence base for market adoption.

Looking Forward

There is no single solution, but these strategies together offer a meaningful way to improve housing supply and affordability. As the Building Blocks series continues, JPMorganChase remains committed to responding to how our business, clients, and the communities we serve experience affordability challenges and to advancing evidence-based recommendations to better deliver housing affordability for households across the U.S.

Evidence-Based Building Blocks for Housing Production

The Strategies to Unlock Housing Supply are:

Reduce Regulatory Barriers
Streamline land use and zoning, modernize building codes, and expedite permitting to help make the construction of various housing options more feasible.

Support Innovations in Construction

Promote market adoption of innovative construction techniques, like manufactured, modular, and other factory-built housing, to improve cost and time efficiencies in housing development.

Leverage Strategic Financing Opportunities

Explore financing opportunities that leverage targeted land and property acquisition strategies, including publicly owned land and transit-adjacent properties, to boost housing growth.

Strengthen Production & Preservation Capabilities

Foster collaboration between government, nonprofits, and private sector partners to leverage resources and scale up housing solutions.

JPMorganChase's commitment to affordable housing

Through the American Dream Initiative, JPMorganChase is advancing scalable, market-based strategies that widen economic opportunity, with housing as a core pillar.

  • +$52B

    In debt and equity financing for affordable housing, 2021–2025

  • $498M

    In philanthropic capital committed to innovative housing solutions, 2021–2025

  • +435K

    Affordable housing units created or preserved, 2021–2025

Metrics are derived from a variety of public and private sources, including data that were self-reported by JPMorganChase grant recipients. JPMorganChase has not independently verified these data and makes no representation or warranty as to the quality, completeness, accuracy or fitness for a particular purpose. The metrics as reported are not directly tied to funds or other support provided by JPMorganChase but rather are a result of a variety of factors.

Last updated: June 2026.

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