Can opening federal land fix the housing crisis?

A conversation with Russell McIntyre and Chay Halbert

At the edges of suburbia, where modern homes dot the horizon, school busses rattle past, and strip malls hum with life, neighborhoods can stop abruptly. It’s not because they’ve hit the border with farmland or a private estate. Instead these undeveloped, unpopulated, and largely overlooked tracts are federal land.

In the midst of a national housing shortage, these overlooked parcels have caught the attention of policymakers and developers alike. Could public land be part of the solution to America's affordability crisis?

The federal government is now considering a once-unlikely approach: opening select tracts of public land for residential development. It's a move that acknowledges the urgent need for more housing, but it also raises big questions. These lands come with legal, environmental, and logistical complexities. And while development may seem like a straightforward fix, the real challenge lies in balancing speed and scale with long-term sustainability and responsible stewardship.

On this episode of Beyond the Buildings, host Maiclaire Bolton Smith is joined by Cotality public policy experts Russell McIntyre and Chay Halbert to explore how to turn this high-potential idea into a workable solution that can fit into broader initiatives to expand affordable housing.

In this episode:

2:20 – Why did the government choose to look at federal land as an affordable housing solution?

5:04 – How can we identify tracts that have greater potential to provide relief?

9:51 – Is there any federal land in Florida that presents an opportunity for affordable housing initiatives?

12:30 – The federal government issued waivers to reduce the requirements for the federal flood risk management standard. What does this mean for new construction in a state threatened by hurricanes?

14:33 – Would building on federal land in Florida mean potentially taking out more policies from the National Flood Insurance Program? How will that affect the program?

17:39 – Erika Stanley does the numbers in the housing market with The Sip.

18:52 – How will tariffs affect home building prices and affordability?

20:29 – How will this initiative to open federal lands for development play out?

Transcript

Russell McIntyre:

Using some Cotality data, we've actually been able to identify specific suburbs or metro areas that might be more conducive to selling federal land. So just as an example, we've looked at Las Vegas.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Welcome to Beyond the Buildings by Cotality. I am your host Maiclaire Bolton Smith. And I'm just as curious as you are about everything that happens in the property industry. On this podcast, we satisfy our collective curiosity, explore questions from every angle and look beyond the obvious. With every conversation, we illuminate what is possible. Federal Lands account for about 28% of the total land in the us. They are largely undeveloped, but that could change. A new initiative from the Trump administration is putting them under the microscope to explore the possibility of opening these lands for home development. This proposal is not however unique to the current administration. The Biden administration also proposed selling government land to bolster affordable housing options. While there is federal land all across the country, it's not all equal. After all, Nevada is not the same thing as Florida. So to explore the possibilities associated with opening the land, specifically in Florida to developers, we've invited back Russell McIntyre and Chay Halbert, both principles and public policy and industry relations here at Cotality. Chay, welcome back and you've brought along a friend this time. Russell, welcome to Beyond the Buildings.

Russell McIntyre:

Hey Maiclaire, thanks for having me. Glad to be back. Yep, great to talk again.

Erika Stanley:

Before we get too far into this episode, here's a friendly reminder about how to see what's coming up next in the property market. To make it easy, we curate the latest insight and analysis for you online, find us using the handle at Cotality on all our social media channels. But now let's get back to Maiclaire, Chay, and Russell.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Okay, so this is a big one and not the first time this has been talked about, but the federal government created a task force to identify federal land that could be used to build affordable housing, which sounds potentially like a really great idea, but I know there's some concern with it. So Russell, why don't you kick it off here. What's the impetus behind this decision?

Russell McIntyre:

Yeah, so it's the current housing shortage that we're facing across the country. I think within the industry we've definitely been talking about the supply issue over the past couple of years. I think that's something that's expanded into more common knowledge for any American in the housing market or looking to get in the housing market right now. So governments at all stages, local, state, and federal are looking to find innovative ways where they can increase the supply of housing to get more people in homes to break down the cost of homes for people looking to enter the market. And this is one of those unique levers that the federal government can pull selling federal lands as a way to potentially increase the housing supply.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

So this is, I mean Chay and I just chatted on the last podcast as well about how beating this drum on the shortage of housing units and building more is really what we need to do to really kind of tackle this affordability issue here. But this is so ambitious, Russell that would opening federal lands actually be able to alleviate this shortage?

Russell McIntyre:

Yes, it can. If you have a very specific plan and an idea of how you want to identify the right areas. Federal, the majority of federal land exists out west of the Rockies, and then a lot of that is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, so to speak. You have a lot of land in places like Utah, Nevada, that's not really close to any currently built infrastructure or any existing towns. So it doesn't necessarily make sense to try to build new towns from scratch in those areas. It cost way too much. You won't find people to live there. However, there are areas of federal land that exist closer to current municipalities, to current metro areas where you could try to identify even down to the parcel level, specific bits of land that actually exist already near current infrastructure. So it wouldn't cost that much to extend a sewer line out there or to extend electricity out to a new suburb, so to speak. So there are definitely areas where it would make a lot of sense and it would cost a lot less and I think that is part of the next step in this process.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah, I am glad you mentioned that because that's exactly where my brain went is like, well, these lands are out in the middle of nowhere and there's no infrastructure to support any kind of living, let alone you'd have to build an entire city. And that doesn't sound like it's a good thing to help with affordability at all. So I guess these ones that are closer to some metro areas, do we know exactly where they are and which ones are maybe potentially a higher probability of this happening?

Russell McIntyre:

Yeah, so using some Cotality data, we've actually been able to identify specific suburbs or metro areas that might be more conducive to selling federal land. So

Just as an example, we've looked at Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a city that is constantly, and there are always very fun housing issues to look at in the Las Vegas metro area, but just south of Las Vegas, there's a suburb called Enterprise, fairly new suburb has been built over the past 20 to 30 years and it was one of the fastest growing cities in the country, I believe over the previous decade. So it's a place that people are moving. It's a place where a lot of new homes need to be built because there's a lot more people coming in and it's in a place in southern Nevada where there is uniquely a lot of federal land. And so if you kind of zoom in to the town of enterprise, you can see that there's still federal land that is interspersed amongst current development. So you have a parcel here that's developed a parcel that's still federal land hasn't been sold, and then another parcel that's developed on the other side. So you have these instances where it makes a lot of sense

To sell this kind of land off. And we've been able to identify specific areas like that across the country, mostly out west. But there are definitely some areas, especially in the Midwest thinking in Wisconsin, Minnesota, around some of the cities up there where this could be useful. But the way we go about identifying these lands is by looking for areas of growth. So looking for places that are going to need new housing that are already kind of a focus for developers where you already have a lot of homes being built, but we might need to increase the supply even more. We can look at it based on affordability issues. So if there are areas where homes are less affordable because maybe of a tightened supply, those might be areas where we want to look at increasing federal lands. We can toggle some of the stuff based on hazard risk. So if we want to look for areas that are going to be a little bit safer as we see natural hazards continuing to hit homeowners across the west,

Erika Stanley:

If you haven't had a chance to meet Cotality yet, come say high, we help you see property from every angle by analyzing the nuances behind billions of data points across the globe. A link to learn more is in the show notes.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

I actually want to take a step back and ask a question. And can we define what we mean by federal land? I think a lot of people think national parks, but there's a lot of things that are federal land. But what is that land currently used for and what exactly is federal land?

Russell McIntyre:

Yeah, so there are actually a number of different federal agencies that own land. So you have, I think probably the largest is the Bureau of Land Management. Within the Department of the Interior you have the Fish and Wildlife Service, you have the Forest Service, you have the National Park Service, the Department of Defense, and the Bureau of Reclamation. I believe those are the six main agencies that own actual land and that could be looking to sell some of their land. And as the names Intel, that land is used for all sorts of stuff. So we probably wouldn't be looking to the National Park Service to sell off a lot of their land because we value our national park system. And a lot of those places often happen to be farther away from metro areas, remote. So they're remote. So it wouldn't make as much sense. And same with the Department of Defense. There's a reason that a lot of that land in Nevada is undeveloped right now, and that's because the Air Force uses that for training and they're not going to be selling off, they're not going to want to build condos right next to their secret military bases. But you could look at agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Acclimation. I think those would probably be ones that would see the majority of land being sold.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Okay, interesting. I want to specifically look at Florida Chay and I just did a deep dive into Florida and what's going on there with property taxes in the last episode. So I kind of want to continue this conversation of Florida doing some really interesting things here. And this, it's not where the majority of federal land is located, but there is a fair amount and Florida is having issues as many are with affordability right now. So I guess when you look at some of these leading indicators and things that we're doing with some of our data here at Cotality, where is the federal land in Florida specifically and could this help with some of the affordability issues that are currently in that state?

Russell McIntyre:

Yeah, I think it could. I don't think it'll help to the extent that's necessary. I think it would be part of a group of solutions that Florida would need to address. But I do think that Florida is unique and a lot of that land is the National Park Service. You think of things like the Everglades National Park, humongous takes up a lot of space down there at the southern tip of Florida. However, there are areas of those parks that get pretty close to some of the major metro areas like Miami.

And there's also several national parks up near Pensacola, up near Destin in the panhandle where it might make sense you have a large park, again, we don't want to get rid of our national parks, but if there's maybe a couple of square miles around the edge of that park where it might make more sense, it's less visited. You have a growing community on the other side, maybe in those types of situations, the pros outweigh the cons and we can understand, okay, seeding a little bit of land, keeping our national park here, but maybe allowing to build up some infrastructure on the edges that could help with those supply concerns.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

So Chay, because you and I did just talk about this affordability issue and in Florida specifically, anything from your perspective on what Russell just said and potentially the use of this land in Florida?

Chay Halbert:

Well, yeah, I think Russell has it right there that it's like this is going to be a tool in the tool belt and it's like affordability. It's a huge problem and really not any one thing is going to get it done, but we've really got to look at everything that's available to really chip away at this problem. So it's a great example when you talk about it's like land that's near land that you may not want to develop. And it's like that's something that even though it may not be a real big needle mover, it's something you got to look at

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Pros and cons. You say Florida, I say hurricane, so I know that one of those things you mentioned too, you have to take into consider the natural hazard risk. And with Florida you can't ignore that, whether it be hurricane from wind damage or the flooding that associated with storm surge and even rain induced flooding. That happens. But the other thing that comes to mind is building for natural hazards and whether it be for hurricane wind or for flood building structures that are wind resistant or more flood resistant. I mean those homes are potentially more expensive to build, which may not be helping with affordability issue. And I guess too, hasn't the Trump administration issued waivers that could reduce the requirement to have to build things more flood resistant in these particular areas too? I'd love to hear what the two of you have to say about this.

Chay Halbert:

Well, they have, it is limited in scope. So specifically what you're referring to is the federal flood risk management standard,

Russell McIntyre:

And

Chay Halbert:

That applies to federally funded construction and actually more specifically how they determine that construction is happening in a flood zone or not. So those requirements are being waived. Does that really have anything to do with condos, single family homes? No, but what I will say is that we know that flooding is only getting worse, it's not getting better. And any kind of rollback in standard, any kind of worsening of our ability to understand flooding and what it's going to do to structures, whether it's some government warehouse or whatever, we really need to be moving forward on that, not backwards waiving these kind of standards. And so for as long as this requirement is going to be put on hold, that's just going to be less understanding that we have about the risk in those areas no matter what kind of construction it's

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Sure. Yeah, that's fair. And I think the other thing that comes to mind is the National Flood insurance program. If somebody is building a home in a FEMA designated flood risk area, they are required to have flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program. If they're not in a designated risk area by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, they don't need to have a flood insurance policy. But those in which is a lot of this area in Florida that potentially could be developed, what would that mean? And does it pose any issues if we are looking at building more, potentially taking out more policies from the National Flood Insurance Program?

Chay Halbert:

It certainly does. I mean, all of this is really a game of pickup sticks. It's like you can't touch one thing without affecting a dozen others. And the NFIP is certainly one of them. The program, it is under a lot of strain and that wasn't always the case. The National Flood Insurance Program for a long time really did pay for itself, the premiums did cover the losses, but up until about Superstorm Sandy say that 10 times fast and Hurricane Harvey, those events, they really did put the program into the red. And since then it really hasn't been able to recover because

Again, flooding is getting worse, it's not getting better, and Congress has had to forgive billions of dollars of debt that the flood insurance program is in it's owed to the treasury. So they just waved their hand and they said it's like, well, we're going to move on from this debt. But if you're talking about building more homes in flood prone areas, you're talking about taking out more required NFIP policies, and again, the flooding in Florida, it's not going to get better. And so it's like you're looking at likely loss there and more payouts that have to happen. And again, I talk about that game of pickup sticks. It's like, yes, we absolutely need to address the supply supply prices that we have, and these federally owned lands are certainly a way to chip away at that. But once you get those homes built, there's all these other problems that you got to think of along the way. And so it's a complicated problem

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

And I love that analogy of pickup sticks because it's a complicated issue and something to add even more complexity to it. Russell, I'd love for you to chime in on the tariffs, which are the top news every day now on everything. And we've done a podcast with this previously with Pete Carroll as well on how the new tariffs will affect home building prices and affordability. And can you just talk a little bit about, from your perspective, what kind of impact this is going to have?

Erika Stanley:

It is that time again, Cotality just dropped new numbers about what's happening in the housing market. Here's what you need to know. Gen Z is entering the housing market and encountering challenges, both familiar, unfamiliar to previous generations while buying a home has always been a milestone, it's an expensive one to offset costs. Gen Z is chasing affordability into America's most disaster prone regions, but they may pay the price in premiums, lost security, wealth and access. Why? Because what looks like opportunity on the surface increasingly carries a hidden cost. These young buyers only make 13% of all transactions in the us, but their representation is higher in Midwestern cities where prices are appealing, those discounted prices may not last though as storm pattern shift, they are bringing the possibility of damage to property and to livelihoods. Hail has become one of the most expensive insurance threats in the country. It hits hardest in the states where the youngest buyers are settling more severe weather means more claims, more claims lead to higher costs. Find out how these costs will shape the future of young home buyers in our recent analysis. The link is in the show notes and that's the sip. See you next time.

Russell McIntyre:

Yeah, I mean, I think the major takeaway is just the level of uncertainty that exists within the home builder industry, the housing industry in general.

Because yeah, when the tariffs are announced, you can, depending on what they cover, you could see all aspects of a home increase in price from the lumber to the metals that go into making some of the appliances to some of the flooring to the roofing. A lot of that could increase in cost depending on if the tariff actually stays in place or not and what level that tariff is. And I think the hardest thing over the past few weeks as we've seen different tariff policies become enacted and then get pulled back and enacted and pulled back, is just that long-term planning is really difficult to do. And unfortunately you do need to be able to plan long-term for a lot of these affordable housing projects, especially for multifamily housing. This isn't something where you can just say, alright, we can get all this done in a year and we'll be good to go. This is a multi-year process where you have to project your cost out into the future. And I think that level of uncertainty has just led people to kind of slow down and pause. And so I think that's the worry with the tariffs is even if they add some sort of cost to the end to total price of a house, sometimes we can overcome that, but sometimes that larger level of just market uncertainty can be a bigger issue to actually getting projects off the ground.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think the uncertainty is a big thing right now and really one of the reasons that this program is facing headwinds as well. So I'm going to ask you to look into your crystal ball as we wrap up here. And I guess when we think about this using federal land for building affordable homes or just for building more homes to hopefully help with the affordability issues, how do you think it'll play out over the course of this administration and potentially even beyond that?

Russell McIntyre:

Well, I will say I am an optimist. I do think this is an issue, a bipartisan issue. I think we actually had members of the Biden administration before they left office saying that this is something that should be tackled. So I am optimistic and especially given the partnership that the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of the Interior have to, they created this task force on selling federal lands. I think if you were to pair this with the Opportunity Zone program that HUD oversees, the current HUD secretary, Scott Turner was instrumental in starting and getting off the ground in his first go around in the first Trump term. I think pairing that opportunity zone investment incentive with the selling of federal lands to decrease the cost of land in general, to help developers build quicker and cheaper, I think it has some real opportunities to increase the housing supply. Again, it's not going, this alone is not going to be a silver bullet to kind of alleviate all problems, but I think this can be a very important aspect of the overall housing supply plan and could really benefit some communities across the country.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

Yeah, definitely. Any thoughts from your crystal ball?

Chay Halbert:

Well, again, I think that the winds are actually kind of blowing in the right way here. Like Russell said, it's like this is a bipartisan idea. This is something that the last administration had considered as well. And it is, land is a key piece. It's like land is expensive, and so if the federal government can find some way to make that land cheaper, to make it something where it's like that part of the cost of building new homes is less, I mean, that's only going to be a benefit.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

All right. Well, I cannot wait to see how this one plays out. Chay, Russell, thank you both so much for joining me today on Beyond the Buildings by Cotality.

Chay Halbert:

It was great joining you. Thanks, Maiclaire.

Maiclaire Bolton Smith:

All right, and thank you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed our latest episode. Please remember to leave us a review and let us know your thoughts and subscribe wherever you get your podcast to be notified when new episodes are released. And thanks to the team for helping bring this podcast to life producer Jessi Devenyns, editor and sound engineer Romie Aromin, our facts guru, Erika Stanley and social media duo, Sarah Buck and Makaila Brooks. Tune in next time for another conversation that illuminates the ideas that will define the future.

Erika Stanley:

You still there? Well, thanks for sticking around. Are you curious to know a little bit more about our guests? Russell McIntyre is an expert in public policy and industry relations for Cotality. He's responsible for researching government and industry issues of importance to the organization and its clients. He also coordinates the Cotality PAC activities and assists leadership with appointments, events and projects with partner organizations. Chay Halbert holds the position of principal public policy and industry relations at Cotality. He develops and manages relationship building efforts between the company and policymakers at the local, state, and federal level.

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