WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Roger Williams (R-TX), Chairman of the House Committee on Small Business, held a hearing titled "Building the Future: How Small Home Builders are Closing America's Housing Gap" to examine the critical role small home builders play in closing America’s housing gap and identify persistent challenges that impede their ability to meet growing demand.

"The American dream of homeownership is slipping out of reach for too many families, and small home builders are stepping up to bring it back," said Chairman Williams. "Unfortunately, small builders are facing far too many roadblocks. Burdensome regulations drive up costs, slow construction, and shut families out of homeownership. Under House Republican leadership, this Committee stands ready to help small builders deliver the homes our Main Streets urgently need."

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Watch the full hearing here.

Below are some key excerpts from today’s hearing:

Chairman Williams: “From your experience deploying modular housing in these very different contexts, could you explain the key advantages of modular construction compared to traditional construction? And more broadly, how do you see modular housing helping to address challenges today  around housing affordability, speed of delivery, and overall supply constraints in high-need communities?” Mr. Schaefer: “Yes, thank you for the question. So again, it’s speed to market. It takes us 10 days to build a house in the factory. Specifically, in Lahaina, we built 85 houses in two months. They were shipped two months later. People were moving in after experiencing a complete loss of their homes and community. So, all the subcontractors are in a factory. We are built as a manufacturing group, so we see ourselves as 18 stations. It’s more set up like a car factory, so a very high-standard building, high quality, architecturally interesting. And what this allows us to do then is build cheaper and faster. Again, the repetitive motion of doing a three-bedroom two-bath house over and over again, you can speed it up, and that’s really what the affordable housing market is lacking right now. What manufacturing does, then, is it makes them cheaper and faster, which allows us to move folks in a very quick way.”

Rep. Meuser: "We all agree, construction costs, regulatory, delays, outdated zoning constraints, fueled decades of underbuilding.  Perhaps as many as three to four million, single family homes. We need to build and make available, small homebuilders play a very vital role....Earlier this week, as has been mentioned, we did pass a very bipartisan amendment to the 20th-century Road to Housing Act, that will address many of the shortage issues by reducing unnecessary barriers to new home construction. Modernizing HUD programs, allowing banks to more freely deploy capital and have some restrictions on institutional purchases of single-family homes. Not the building of single family homes, but the purchasing of them.”

Rep. Jack: “This week, the House took action on housing. As you saw, no doubt, a few days ago. Could you comment on how that’s going to help Americans achieve that American dream, buying their first home and helping their families grow?” Mr. Owens: “I very much appreciate that question because the effort that Congress has made, I think, is going to go a long way to really supporting what we feel is a completely underserved housing inventory right now. I think one thing, although a little bit controversial, is that in the end, again, because we don’t represent institutionalized investment. The removal of the seven-year force requirement to sell build-to-rent properties was something that is very, very important to us because that’s about 10 percent of the overall addition to the inventory on an annual basis at this point. I also think that the Road to Housing, the House version, includes increased land-use reforms. Enhances multifamily finance tools, creates some new renovation programs, and I think, one of the most important things that really helps the small builder contention out there is that it provides some regulatory relief for the community banks to get a little bit more flexibility, where we typically go for our money to build these homes.”