A house is more than a purchase. It’s a cornerstone of the American dream. It comes with an expectation, a promise, that the roof will hold together in high wind, the wiring will not ignite and the walls will be standing after a storm.
For more than a century, America’s building codes have helped keep that promise. They were drafted in the wake of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, refined after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and have been updated ever since by builders, engineers, fire officials and other experts working in public view.
A debate underway in Washington and state legislatures threatens to undo this good work. As policymakers search for ways to make housing more affordable – a critical priority – some have set their sights on rolling back building codes. They have revived an old argument, worn smooth by decades of repetition, that stronger codes mean higher construction costs and, inevitably, higher home prices. That premise is untrue.
What the data actually says about building codes and home prices
A team at the University of Alabama led by Dr. Lawrence “Lars” Powell tested the presumed linkage and found it wanting. In the study released June 7, researchers examined 2.7 million home sales across 26 states between 2011 and 2022, tracking 45 separate adoptions of the International Residential Code.
Their compelling results reverse the assumption that home prices consistently increase prices or that new home supply is limited when states adopt modern building codes.
The researchers acknowledge that construction costs have risen. However, their findings debunk the idea that building code adoption and implementation costs systematically translate into higher sales prices.
Land costs, labor costs, mortgage interest rates, neighborhood characteristics, home size, number of bedrooms, home age, local market conditions and simple supply and demand all shape housing prices. Still, no sustained pattern indicated that building codes drove prices up. In fact, in examining homes up to ten years old, the researchers observed price decreases more often than price increases following code adoption.
That distinction matters because it exposes how narrowly the affordability debate has been framed. Purchase price is only the beginning of what a home costs its owner, because homeowners do not experience cost as a single transaction. They experience it over the life of the mortgage and often well beyond.
The true cost of homeownership goes beyond the purchase price
A house that floods every few years, leaks during routine thunderstorms or generates one insurance claim after another is not affordable, no matter what it sells for. Real affordability must account for durability, insurability and resilience—safely protecting the family and ensuring swift and complete recovery when disaster strikes. As insurance costs rise and availability shrinks across many disaster-prone states, resilience is more relevant to insurability than ever before.
Individual and community economic benefits from building codes are well established. Homes built to current standards allow owners to qualify for lower insurance premiums. They perform dramatically better in disasters, helping avoid deductibles, costly disruption and loss of use. The National Institute of Building Sciences found that every dollar spent adopting modern codes returns roughly eleven dollars in benefits through reduced disaster losses, lower recovery costs and stronger communities. FEMA’s multi-year study of hazard-resistant codes projects cumulative savings above a hundred billion dollars by 2040.
None of this means the affordability crisis is imaginary. Many families are struggling to save enough for a down payment while confronting a market with limited housing supply that hasn’t kept pace with demand. The tools best suited to that problem are easing inflation, leveraging innovation like off-site construction, encouraging greater density, expanding financing options and growing the labor force.
Affordability and resilience are not competing goals
For years, even the strongest supporters of building codes struggled with the perceived dichotomy: Yes, modern codes make homes safer, but do they also make them less affordable? Common sense and evidence from the University of Alabama can now remove that concern. Policymakers no longer must choose between affordability and resilience because they were never competing goals in the first place.
Housing affordability should mean more than getting families into a home. It should mean keeping them there, protected from disasters, able to obtain insurance and spared avoidable repair costs. Homeowners should urge their elected representatives to support updated, modern building codes and encourage the Department of Housing and Urban Development to continue recognizing the important role codes play in strengthening communities. Building codes don’t stand in the way of the American dream. They help preserve it.
Leslie Chapman-Henderson is the president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH).
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners. To contact the editor responsible for this piece: [emailprotected].