When Rep. Erin Houchin (R., Ind.) was 26, she and her husband purchased land in Indiana that they still live on today — an experience that would be almost impossible to replicate today, Houchin told the Washington Reporter in an interview.
“We were building in the Midwest many years ago, when the interest rates were a lot better,” Houchin said. “So we didn’t have an interest rate problem. We also could refinance, which we ended up doing much later. But we had to have a co-signer on our loan, and we had to have some collateral of some kind, and we were able to, through family support, have that collateral support, and many people don’t have that, we were very fortunate to.”
“But we look back on that time and think, ‘how did we survive?’” she said. “I think you just find a way to do it.”
The Houchin family was able to make the “sacrifice” necessary to afford the American dream of homeownership. But, Houchin said, that doesn’t mean it was easy.
“You’ve got the bills to pay, so you figure out a way to pay those bills, and maybe something has to wait. We’ve never really lived off of credit. Before we even got married, we were down to just one credit card. If I needed to make a big purchase, we would literally do the Dave Ramsey save money envelope system until we had enough money to pay for it, that I think helped us by paying off our one credit card every month,” she said. “That helped us build a very good credit score for ultimately, what was our refinance on our loan. But it was not easy.”
Houchin introduced bipartisan legislation — the Affordable HOMES Act — that she said can address one of the root causes of the skyrocketing cost of housing. Her bill, which she rolled out with Reps. Mike Flood (R., Neb.) and Jake Auchincloss (D., Mass.), “is designed to target…the cost of housing for manufactured homes, $10,000 to $15,000 per door, only because of the regulation. They wanted to have these arbitrary energy efficiency standards.” Houchin said that these unnecessary costs skyrocketed because of the Biden administration’s Department of Energy, which was a core part of “Biden’s regulatory scheme.”
The difference between the Biden and the Trump administration’s Departments of Energy and Housing and Urban Development has been notable. Both departments, she said, “have been eager to allow these changes to be made and to work in concert with Congress on it.” From Congress’s standpoint, she said, “a big first step to let people get into manufactured housing. One thing that the left has created is a myth that manufactured housing is not energy efficient already. Manufactured housing is already among the most energy efficient housing that we have. And it’s a false claim to think that just because we’re dialing back the energy regulations in this bill that somehow we’re making things inefficient; we’re not.”
“All we’re saying,” Houchin said, “is we don’t need added arbitrary energy efficiency standards on top of the cost of housing, when really the most important thing is getting roofs over people’s heads, letting young people get into their first home and to start to build that equity for the future.”
Houchin added that the “most important thing” that she and her colleagues have seen in the housing space “should be getting people into a home. Let them decide how energy efficient they want the home to be based on how they’re able to manage their own household budgets.”
She said that feedback from Auchincloss was important in shaping the bill. “When this bill went through committee, it was strictly dialing back the regulation and putting HUD in charge of manufactured housing, period,” she said. “Then, we were approached by, as I said, Congressman Jake Auchincloss, who advised that the Department of Energy within the bill should maintain an advisory role to HUD. But instead of having two competing agencies on this issue, the agencies will be forced to work in concert because one is taking the clear lead, and HUD has been the chief regulator over manufactured housing before this rule came out in 2022…What’s really important right now is reducing the cost so it makes home ownership a reality for millions of Americans who are priced out of the market currently because of things like these energy regulations that were from the Biden years.”
Both Congress and the Trump administration are looking at a variety of ways to tackle the cost of housing. Houchin said that beyond her latest bipartisan bill, she is “looking at tax provisions that we could institute. We are at very early stages with some, but a tax provision that would, instead of having a penalty for taking money out of retirement early, you could have a lower tax rate for taking money out of a retirement plan to assist a child with a first time home purchase, or for health care expenses, or for student loans, anything that can help economically the next generation be able to achieve better than where their parents had been.”
“What that could do,” she said, “is free up capital. If you’re paying off student loans, then that’s more money that can go back out into the loan market. If you are increasing capital with the first time home purchase, that’s creating an ability for people who ordinarily might have been priced out on the market to begin it. Think about a 22, or a 20 year old, whose parents are set to retire when they’re 65; they would not see any of that benefit from their parents’ retirement savings until they’re 50 or 60 years old when they wouldn’t need it. I’m trying to get resources from parents and grandparents to the next generation with some tax provisions that might incentivize doing so to help give them that leg up, and not make them wait til they’re 60 to receive the benefit of it, but to generate cash flow for this next generation, so they can get it when they need it most, instead of getting it when they don’t really need it.”
Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Erin Houchin, lightly edited for clarity.
Washington Reporter:
Congresswoman Houchin, what led you to want to spearhead this particular bill to lower housing costs? There are a lot of pieces flying out there; how did this one come together?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
We wanted to focus on lowering the cost of housing. It’s something I’ve been focused on since I was in the state legislature. That’s one of the issues I hear about, especially from young people who want to get into their first home. Home ownership leads to economic stability and economic growth, stability for children and families, and better outcomes, not to mention building those economic opportunities for American families for the future. So it’s very important to me to find some way that we could help close that gap. This is one way that we can do that. It’s a very easy way we can do it via reducing the cost of housing with the Affordable HOMES Act.
Washington Reporter:
You’re one of the youngest legislators in Congress. Does that factor into why this is a priority for you?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
My kids are getting to be an age now where they’re going to start to buy a home, and I certainly hear from them on the cost of housing. During the Biden years, inflationary pressures and overspending wreaked havoc on the markets and certainly wreaked havoc on the housing market. His regulatory scheme just increased the cost of housing extraordinarily. If you take manufactured housing, which the Affordable HOMES Act is designed to target, just under Biden’s regulatory scheme that increased the cost of housing for manufactured homes, $10,000 to $15,000 per door, only because of the regulation. They wanted to have these arbitrary energy efficiency standards. Jake Auchincloss is my co-author. It’s a bipartisan bill. What we’ve been saying is the most important thing should be getting people into a home. Let them decide how energy efficient they want the home to be based on how they’re able to manage their own household budgets.
Washington Reporter:
Your legislation rolls back a lot of the Biden Department of Energy regulations specifically. Can you tell me kind of how you’ve seen the Biden versus Trump Departments of Energy approach housing affordability?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
We’ve seen President Trump recently focus on reducing the cost of housing directly; his Departments of Energy and of Housing and Urban Development both have been eager to allow these changes to be made and to work in concert with Congress on it. I’ve been working on this with Congressman Mike Flood, who chairs the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee for Financial Services. I was on Financial Services last Congress. I even served on that subcommittee with him. He and I have been working on trying to solve this problem. This is just one way we can do it. The administration is going to have their own ways, and we’re going to continue to work on these issues, but this is a big first step to let people get into manufactured housing. One thing that the left has created is a myth that manufactured housing is not energy efficient already. Manufactured housing is already among the most energy efficient housing that we have. And it’s a false claim to think that just because we’re dialing back the energy regulations in this bill that somehow we’re making things inefficient; we’re not. All we’re saying is we don’t need added arbitrary energy efficiency standards on top of the cost of housing, when really the most important thing is getting roofs over people’s heads, letting young people get into their first home and to start to build that equity for the future.
Washington Reporter:
Can you talk about how you got this to be a bipartisan issue, and what it says that you do have Republicans and Democrats working on making the American Dream obtainable for younger Americans?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
When this bill went through committee, it was strictly dialing back the regulation and putting HUD in charge of manufactured housing, period. Then, we were approached by, as I said, Congressman Jake Auchincloss, who advised that the Department of Energy within the bill should maintain an advisory role to HUD. But instead of having two competing agencies on this issue, the agencies will be forced to work in concert because one is taking the clear lead, and HUD has been the chief regulator over manufactured housing before this rule came out in 2022 so we picked up support from lawmakers in both parties on the Energy and Commerce Committee to pass it. What’s really important right now is reducing the cost so it makes home ownership a reality for millions of Americans who are priced out of the market currently because of things like these energy regulations that were from the Biden years.
Washington Reporter:
President Trump recently announced the plan on not allowing large institutional investors to buy single family homes. How does that fit into what you’re talking about here, and what is your perspective on that?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
When you have these investors purchasing single family homes, that’s purchasing out from under a family that could be going into that home, rather than a rental. And I think that’s critically important, because what we want is for the economic stability of families across America, we want them to have that stake in the ground, that pride of home ownership, and the equity it can build for the future. You get them into their first home, they own that property, they are now property tax-paying citizens across the country, and they have that pride of home ownership, that grounding that it brings, but also the equity for the future. You can’t put a price on the economic stability that it provides. And President Trump’s plan fits hand in hand with the goals that we have been putting forward, and we’re certainly grateful for his leadership and continuing to work with the White House and the president on driving down the cost of housing.
Washington Reporter:
What do you think about restricting the ability for non-Americans, especially from adversarial nations like China, to buy single family homes?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
I think all of the above is the answer. We have to look at every mechanism. As I said, the Affordable HOMES Act really is one thing we can do. But there are many things we can do. The president’s proposal is one. Looking at prohibiting the ability of Chinese nationals from certainly purchasing these properties, that has a national security implication as well, but we should be looking at every strategy we can to try to help this next generation achieve the American Dream of home ownership. This legislation and President Trump’s proposal certainly fit that goal, and we do hope that young Americans will take note that House Republicans and the president are listening, and we are working diligently on this issue every single day.
Washington Reporter:
What else can be done from a legislative standpoint to also increase the inventory of homes in Indiana and around the country for Americans of all ages to be able to buy homes?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
I’m looking at tax provisions that we could institute. We are at very early stages with some, but a tax provision that would, instead of having a penalty for taking money out of retirement early, you could have a lower tax rate for taking money out of a retirement plan to assist a child with a first time home purchase, or for health care expenses, or for student loans, anything that can help economically the next generation be able to achieve better than where their parents had been. What that could do is free up capital; if you’re paying off student loans, then that’s more money that can go back out into the loan market. If you are increasing capital with the first time home purchase, that’s creating an ability for people who ordinarily might have been priced out on the market to begin it. Think about a 22, or a 20 year old, whose parents are set to retire when they’re 65; they would not see any of that benefit from their parents’ retirement savings until they’re 50 or 60 years old when they wouldn’t need it. I’m trying to get resources from parents and grandparents to the next generation with some tax provisions that might incentivize doing so to help give them that leg up, and not make them wait til they’re 60 to receive the benefit of it, but to generate cash flow for this next generation, so they can get it when they need it most, instead of getting it when they don’t really need it.
Washington Reporter:
Are you still in the first house that you bought?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
Yes I am.
Washington Reporter:
Tell me about your story of your first time home ownership.
Rep. Erin Houchin:
My father-in-law is a builder, and there had been a fire at the property, and this lot had been vacant for several years. He came home one day and said, ‘f you don’t buy this, I’m going to buy it and put a house on and sell it. But I think this is a good opportunity for you.’ So we ended up buying it. We had to have a cosigner, because we were first time home buyers.
Washington Reporter:
How old were you?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
I was probably 26 when we first purchased a home. Before that, we were renters, but we were looking to to build a home. It certainly wasn’t something that was our dream home at the time. If we were thinking what’s the home that I would want to build from scratch, it wouldn’t have necessarily been this at the time. We had to take the footprint of the house, and we had no floor plan, no blueprint. We just had to build a house. So it’s special to the family, because my husband’s dad built it, and my dad, who’s no longer with us, wrote the floor plan, and we have that written on graph paper, literally, the layout of what we wanted the rooms in the house to look like. Wad to get help from both of our parents to do it. I think that’s common, but we were able to get onto this property and build a house, and that’s become our home, and we’ve been there since the year our second daughter was born, and it’s been really good for us. And again, if we can somehow free up capital, grandparents and parents to help their kids now when they need it most, versus when they’re at the peak of their working life and then inheriting any other resources from from these retirement savings, if we can help them now, that’s something I think can really be a game changer in not only the housing market, but in student education as well as healthcare.
Washington Reporter:
Where were you and your husband in your careers when you bought this house?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
When we got married, my husband was in his last year of law school, and I was pregnant. We got married in October. I got pregnant that next January. So the last year of law school for him, where he graduated, took the bar exam, passed the bar, hung out a shingle, I was the only person working; we saved just enough money to pay for my maternity leave, and by the time I went back to work, he was admitted to the bar and had started practicing law.
Washington Reporter:
Do you think that this experience is something that could happen now?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
We were building in the Midwest many years ago, when the interest rates were a lot better. So we didn’t have an interest rate problem. We also could refinance, which we ended up doing much later. But we had to have a co-signer on our loan, and we had to have some collateral of some kind, and we were able to, through family support, have that collateral support, and many people don’t have that, we were very fortunate to. We have a traditional loan, but you have to have a lot of resources up front. I was working. My husband was practicing law at that point, and we somehow made it work. But we look back on that time and think, ‘how did we survive?’ I think you just find a way to do it. You’ve got the bills to pay, so you figure out a way to pay those bills, and maybe something has to wait. We’ve never really lived off of credit. Before we even got married, we were down to just one credit card. If I needed to make a big purchase, we would literally do the Dave Ramsey save money envelope system until we had enough money to pay for it, that I think helped us by paying off our one credit card every month. That helped us build a very good credit score for ultimately, what was our refinance on our loan. But it was not easy. It’s a lot of sacrifice, but the benefits do come later when you’re able to do that. With the Affordable HOMES Act and anything we can do to reduce the cost is important, because right now, about 38 percent of the cost of housing is in regulation. It’s gotten worse and worse and worse, state and local and federal regulation all make it more expensive. This Affordable HOMES Act is one piece of this. We have much more to do, but if that can help, that is certainly something that we should do. I’m happy that the House is taking it up. I’m very proud of the effort. It’s bipartisan, and I’m certainly grateful for Congressman Flood and Congressman Auchincloss for their leadership and support on the issue.
Washington Reporter:
If there were a plot of land right next to your house now, and that same situation happened, there was a different 26 year old Hoosier woman and her husband, do you think that they would they be able to buy that house, or would they be priced out of that?
Rep. Erin Houchin:
I think at this point, if you’re making a land purchase, those prices are astronomical. If you’re just purchasing a piece of land, that’s a little bit different. Ours was a hole in the ground. The cost of housing is so high right now and the interest rates are high, I think that would be it would be difficult. If you had the right cosigner and you have that support, you could do it. The challenge is, if you are a young person who does not have family support to help you get that start, it’s going to be very challenging in today’s marketplace. That’s why we should be doing everything we can, like clearing out the regulation that is literally to the dollar, increasing the cost of housing by $10,000 or $15,000 for these manufacturing homes. If you were 26 today, trying to do that, and you know that coming into it, you’ve got a $15,000 or $20,000 added cost for no real reason on something that is not really tangible, that might reduce the carbon footprint by 0.0008 percent, that’s un-American, and we have to be doing everything we can to stop that.
Washington Reporter:
Congresswoman Houchin, thanks as always for talking.
