Over the past year, prices grew at their fastest pace since November 2022, according to February’s S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index released Tuesday. The index reported a 6.4% increase during the 12 months ended in February. Prices grew on a monthly basis, too.

At the same time, other housing costs have become increasingly burdensome for prospective homebuyers: Mortgage rates surpassed 7% in recent weeks, and home insurance rates have climbed as climate concerns put upward pressure on prices.

President Joe Biden has proposed legislation to combat affordability, including tax credits as incentives for construction and consumer assistance programs.

But at a local level, some state lawmakers have begun campaigns to make housing more affordable and accessible, from allowing small apartments over garages to allowing smaller house lots. Here are some examples:

Utah recently passed a package of housing bills at the end of the 2024 legislative session. Among the collection of bills are provisions specifically targeting homeownership.

For example, HB572 established the Utah Homes Investment Program under which the state treasurer will invest in loans for developers to build houses priced, ideally, at $350,000 or lower. Meanwhile, SB168 sets building codes for modular homes and allows cities or counties to establish more dense zones of affordable, smaller, single-family lots.

“Rather than focus on creating demand incentives, we thought it would be wiser to focus on the supply end of things and see if we could juice the number of housing starts, which have dropped precipitously over the last two years,” Steve Waldrip, senior adviser for housing strategy and innovation to Gov. Spencer Cox, told local media outlets.

While it is now up to cities to implement and take advantage of the new legislation, Waldrip said lawmakers are hopeful that the bills will help ease the state’s burgeoning housing shortage.

Ahead of the state legislature’s 2023 session, Gov. Greg Gianforte of Montana established a Housing Task Force to help develop solutions for the state’s housing supply shortage and affordability issues, according to a statement from his office. That task force provided legislators with recommendations that eventually leading to sweeping housing legislation.

Among the bills signed into law in 2023 were provisions for housing, zoning and land-use aimed at increasing access and affordability.

For example, accessory dwelling units — defined by the American Planning Association as smaller, independent residential dwellings located on the same lot as a stand-alone (i.e., detached single-family) house — are now legal across the state.

“Now a family that's on a fixed income living in a single-family home can rent out an apartment over the garage or in a basement,” Gianforte said in an interview with the planning group. “A nurse or a teacher can move in there and it's a starter apartment for them. It helps people on a fixed income make ends meet and it creates more dwelling units.”

The bills also changed zoning laws, making any lot zoned for a single-family house now eligible for a duplex — a policy that has been introduced in other states such as California.

In October, Gov. Maura Healey introduced her Affordable Homes Act, a “comprehensive bill to increase housing production and invest in livable communities.”

The bill’s provisions include funding for first-time homebuyer opportunities and construction of affordable single-family houses, as well as provisions for allowing accessory dwelling units in single-family zoning districts and tax credits to incentivize the production of “homeownership units" aimed at creating affordable ownership opportunities across income levels.

“The cost of housing is the biggest challenge facing the people of Massachusetts,” Healy said in a statement. “The Affordable Homes Act delivers on this promise by unlocking $4 billion to support the production, preservation and rehabilitation of more than 65,000 homes statewide.”

As of the beginning of April, the legislature was still hearing testimony in support of the bill. Supporters say it would transform the state’s housing crisis and offer more opportunities for homeownership.

Last fall, California passed a bill allowing accessory dwelling units to be sold as their own residences, essentially functioning like condos. Before this law, the units could not be sold separately from their primary residence.

The new law authorizes cities to permit these transactions, but does not require all cities to participate, according to legal professionals at Holland & Knight.

Supporters of the legislation told local media the bill functions as a two-fold solution: It allows homeowners to keep their residences by supplementing their income with the sale of their accessory dwelling unit, and it offers an accessible path to homeownership for first-time buyers.

“California needs more housing. ADUs can be built quickly and fit into existing neighborhoods,” Phil Ting, the San Francisco assemblymember who introduced the bill, said in a statement. “Homeowners can be part of the solution.”

Another method some states have used to tackle housing affordability is legislation targeting “middle housing,” such as duplexes, triplexes or townhouses that “provides diverse housing options along the spectrum of affordability,” according to the National League of Cities.

A state using this tactic is Washington, where in 2023, lawmakers passed a law to create affordable housing by permitting more density.

The bill, applied to cities based on their size, no longer requires neighborhoods to include only single-family houses, instead allowing for duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes in areas previously limited by single-family zoning. For example, cities with more than 75,000 people have to allow between at least four and six homes per lot, depending on how far that lot is from a major transit stop and the cost of the houses.

“We simply don’t have enough housing in this state,” Sen. Yasmin Trudeau said, according to local media. “This problem affects every city in every county across the state and it’s a bigger problem than any city or county has been able to tackle so far.”