News

2025 has been a historic year for housing reform. A new policy brief from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University reported that 123 bills that streamline housing development were passed between July 2024 and June 2025 in state legislatures – more than tripling the previous year’s total.      

As these reforms take effect, multiple metrics show that housing supply is rebounding – to pre-pandemic levels in some areas – and prices are stagnating or even beginning to decrease.  

Zonda’s “New Home Lot Supply Index” in Q2 2025 climbed to 68.4—well above the all-time low of 35.8 set at the height of the pandemic housing boom in Q2 2022. While this is a promising sign, most housing markets are still what Zonda considers “significantly undersupplied.”  

This June, according to Redfin, half a million more people were trying to sell homes than buy one, the greatest imbalance in that direction since Redfin started tracking these numbers in 2013.  

The May housing report from Realtor.com showed that inventory levels rose for the 19th straight month and were more than 30% higher than the same period last year. In all, 22 of the top 50 metro areas reported more inventory than they did in 2019. In Seattle, as well as Dallas and Austin, Texas, the number of homes for sale is more than 50% higher than pre-pandemic levels. Inventory in Denver is double what it was before Covid – reaching levels not seen in a decade in some counties.  

Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said it showed that inventory levels were beginning to realign after several years of unaffordable conditions.   

By the end of July, ResiClub, an independent news and research firm that covers the U.S. housing market, reported that 80 of the 200 major housing markets are above pre-pandemic inventory levels. It also reported that it expects that number will continue to rise this year.  

In Nevada, active housing inventory rose to 1,168 units in July — the third straight month that the supply of existing homes in the market surpassed 1,000 units and the 15th consecutive month with an increase in the supply of existing homes, according to Sierra Nevada Realtors.  

In Arizona, the greater Phoenix area ranked as the top market in the country, having built more than 20,000 build-to-rent homes, including more than 5,000 constructed in 2024. So far, 1,900 homes have been built this year, according to the CoStar Group.   

As supply has increased, rents have begun to dip as well, according to a new report from Pew. The steepest rent declines were for units in older and less expensive buildings. Even though most of the new apartments and condominiums built were not subsidized and may have had higher rents than low-income residents could afford, the new supply helped push rents down in older, less-expensive units by reducing the competition among those seeking homes that were no longer as scarce.  

While the housing market is showing signs of improvement, Western Governors are continuing to enact, and advocate in Congress, for additional housing legislation.  

“It’s important to remember that Oregon’s housing affordability and supply crisis will not be solved overnight,” Kotek said at a ceremonial bill signing on July 29, during which she signed five housing bills to make developing “middle housing” easier. “Today’s not a victory lap. I believe in celebrating, but it’s just for a day, and then we’re gonna get back to work, because we have a lot to do.”   

Western Governors also released a set of federal policy recommendations within the report from New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s WGA Chair initiative, Building Resilient and Affordable New Developments in the West (BRAND West).  

Major Energy Merger: NorthWestern Energy Group and Black Hills Corp. announced a merger this week to create a “pure-play, regulated, vertically integrated utility” that will serve about 2.1 million customers across Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming.  

Together, the companies plan to invest over $7 billion through 2029 to expand electric and natural gas infrastructure, meet rising energy demand, and strengthen system resilience.  

Mining for Good: U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Idaho Governor Brad Little recently met with Perpetua Resources Corp. in Valley County, Idaho, to discuss the Stibnite Gold Project, which will redevelop a historically mined area for mining gold and the only domestic source of the critical mineral antimony. Ultimately, the project will also rehabilitate the severely damaged environment (fish haven’t been able to swim past the historic Yellow Pine pit since 1938).  

The project has also been working with local schools and investing in career education for local students. During the Secretary and Governor's visit, Perpetua Resources announced the creation of the Stibnite Launch Scholarship to support CWI's Geosciences Department, helping prepare students with real-world, hands-on training for rewarding, high-skill jobs in Idaho's mining sector.   

"Partnerships like this between Idaho businesses and our higher education institutions mean we can keep jobs, economic benefits, and expertise right here in Idaho,” Governor Little said.  

Wildlife Wildfire Recovery: Wildlife is returning to the areas burned by the Eaton Fire in Los Angeles, California, and scientists from UCLA are working to study their return to better understand how nature recovers after fire. 

“The coyotes and the ravens were there right away,” Ochoa, a UCLA psychiatry professor, said. “Then with time, we've seen some green come back. There's crown sprouting on a lot of the trees. There's elderberry coming back. There's black sage coming back.” 

“Then came the bobcats because the ground squirrels were there… And then we were fortunate to see a mountain lion,” she continued.  

“We can learn from the wildlife and nature and all the plants and sort of watch them regrow as we do," she said. "It can teach us how to rebuild our own lives as we watch nature do what it's been doing for millions of years, which is just return.”   

Pennies from the Sun: Using a one-time incentive from the Community Solar Expansion Program, 16 rural schools across Eastern Washington are set to install solar systems on or near school buildings at no cost to the districts. Utility companies Inland Power and Avista have also joined the effort. The money saved in energy costs will be reinvested into the district to help low-income populations for the first 10 years of the 30-year lifespan of the solar panel system.  

“It’s pennies from the sun,” said David Funk, president of Zero Emissions Northwest.

Record-Breaking Run: Dr. Anne Flower’s time (17:58:19) at this year’s Life Time Leadville Trail 100 Run in Colorado broke a 31-year-old record – one of the longest-standing records in ultra-running – by an astonishing eight minutes.  The previous record of 18:06:24 was set by the ultramarathon runner Ann Trason in 1994.