Incentives matter, installment #5637

America needs more than 5 million new houses to meet demand, according to a study last year by Realtor.com. With sales of existing homes slowing, the need for more new houses is only growing. Florida, my home state, might have found part of the solution: Reform the permitting process so that building houses is easier.

Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill that fundamentally changes the state’s permitting process for home building. It requires local jurisdictions to post online not only their permitting processes but also the status of permit applications. The transparency takes a good amount of mystery out of what can be an inscrutable branch of bureaucracy.

More important, the reforms also created a system that strongly incentivizes cities and counties to approve new home permits in a timely way. When a builder or property owner submits an application to build a new home, cities and counties have 30 business days to process it or request corrections.

If the government offices fail to respond in that time frame, the locality must refund 10 percent of the application fee for every additional business day of silence. Application fees can vary widely by locality, but the average cost in Florida is nearly $1,000, according to HomeAdvisor.com. If officials request corrections to the application, they have 10 business days to approve or disapprove of the resubmitted application. Blowing past that deadline leads to an automatic 20 percent refund, with a further 10 percent added for each additional missed day, up to a five-day cap.

And this:

A study of housing sales in southwest Florida between 2007 and 2017 by the James Madison Institute found that permitting delays added as much as $6,900 to the cost of a typical house. That’s a de facto tax on Florida families; now the Sunshine State is making cities and towns pay for their own delays.

Here is the full story, via the excellent Kevin Lewis.

The post Incentives matter, installment #5637 appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

        [

Comments

](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/07/incentives-matter-installment-5637.html#comments) - September 30, 2019 – These homes use septic tanks that rely ...by Incentives matter, algae bloom edition - Realtor.com must be underestimating the number of homes ...by No way

Related Stories



Submitted July 27, 2022 at 11:51AM by Significant-Notice- https://ift.tt/Bhge4Jj

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Question about septic tanks

Septic Tanks For Sale At Tank Depot

UK Property Law questions