Midterm voters haven't seen this many housing proposals on the ballot in 20 years

By Aarthi Swaminathan

Ballot measures aim to fix the housing crisis in various ways, from making it easier to build new homes to cutting property taxes

"I've been in the housing world for 20 years. This is the most that I can remember happening at any one time," one housing expert said.

Massachusetts is one of the most expensive housing markets in the nation, and a 29-year-old economist says he knows how to make it more affordable. He wants to reduce the amount of land required to build a single-family home in the state to as little as 5,000 square feet.

Andrew Mikula, a self-declared policy wonk, didn't come up with the idea himself. He noticed it worked in other parts of the U.S., in places like Houston, where similar legislation resulted in more home-building. Minimum lot sizes for new homes in an expensive Boston suburb like Bedford, Mass., range from 25,000 to 60,000 square feet.

Mikula filed a citizen petition in August 2025 proposing the change and it will appear on ballots statewide this November. Reducing the lot-size requirement should reduce the cost of a new single-family home significantly, Mikula told MarketWatch. He estimated the smaller lot sizes could potentially lead to the construction of as many as 5,700 new homes across the state per year.

This November, Americans will vote on more housing-related measures than have appeared on ballots in 20 years, according to Ballotpedia. From California to Massachusetts, they will decide on initiatives that could impact local housing markets and address the soaring cost of homes that have frustrated so many Americans.

"Housing and housing affordability is a top-tier issue, and that's why you see so much action across the board at the federal government, but also at the state and local levels," Dennis Shea, executive director of the J. Ronald Terwillinger Center for Housing Policy, told MarketWatch.

A recently passed bipartisan federal law attempts to cut red tape to make it easier to build housing. But to fix the housing-affordability crisis, "all levels of government need to be involved, as well as the private sector and philanthropy," Shea said. Where and what you can build is still largely limited by state and local building and zoning regulations.

The state ballot measures aim to fix the housing crisis in various ways, from amending regulations so home-building is easier, to decreasing the ongoing cost of homeownership by cutting taxes.

"I've been in the housing world for 20 years. This is the most that I can remember happening at any one time," Ken Wingert, chief advocacy officer at the National Association of Home Builders, a trade association, told MarketWatch. "Clearly folks are frustrated, and looking at polling, affordability is really the driver in this election and housing is right [alongside] energy costs and grocery costs," he added.

These are the three approaches going before voters in November that housing experts are watching most closely:

1. Cut red tape locally to encourage more home-building

This idea is what's fueling the initiative led by Mikula's group, Legalize Starter Homes. If Massachusetts voters choose yes on Question 7, single-family homes could soon be built on lots as small as 5,000 square feet with at least 50 feet of street frontage and access to public water and sewer.

Most towns and local governments have rules on how big a lot must be for a builder to construct a single-family home on it. The median size of lots nationally for single-family homes sold last year was roughly 8,500 square feet, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the National Association of Home Builders.

But cities and towns can shrink that figure: In Houston, for instance, real-estate developers can build on parcels as small as 1,400 square feet.

In Massachusetts, more than half of the land available to build single-family homes currently requires a minimum lot size of 40,000 square feet, and 24% of land requires an 80,000-square-feet minimum, according to the National Zoning Atlas, a nonprofit research group.

"Land is scarce, especially in places like Massachusetts that are fairly built out," Wingert, the NAHB advocacy officer, said. Question 7 is "the type of measure that can lead to more construction," he said, and would increase density.

The Massachusetts Municipal Association, a nonprofit organization, opposes the measure. "Zoning decisions are inherently local, and have been determined by the residents of our communities," Adam Chapdelaine, the executive director of the organization, said during a legislative hearing in March.

"Any attempt to pre-empt this local process with a one-size-fits-all policy strips local residents and officials of their role and their voice," he added.

In California, another expensive state for housing, Proposition 45 also aims to cut local red tape. The California ballot measure essentially modifies the environmental-review process to shorten the time it takes to get a project approved.

The California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, is a state law from 1970 that requires state and local agencies to evaluate the environmental impact of proposed projects before approving them. The law has been amended over the years, most recently in June 2025, when Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed bills that exempt many projects from lengthy environmental-review processes, CalMatters reported previously.

Prop. 45 would build on that further, as well as set a limit on how much time agencies and courts could take to evaluate the environmental impact of proposed projects and resolve cases.

"We've heard from a number of builders that passage of this measure is really going to be key" to encourage homebuilders to stay and operate in California, because it would give them some longer-term certainty, Wingert said. Currently the state is among the more difficult ones to build homes, he said.

Michael McNamara, the chief executive of Samara, a home-building company, said that CEQA has "destroyed the California housing market" because builders face so many challenges to build homes.

Prop. 45 supporters have argued that delays related to getting projects approved add more than $75,000 to the cost of a new home, and that Prop. 45 will lower rents and mortgage payments.

Environmental groups and labor unions are among the numerous opponents of Prop. 45. Some groups say the measure could create more pollution and negatively affect air quality, and others warned about the measure being led by corporations that could "fast-track dangerous gas pipelines" and data centers in local neighborhoods.

2. Bonds to fund down-payment assistance for new homes

The idea here is to combine state-issued housing bonds with a down-payment-assistance program on a large scale.

Former California state Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg has been pounding the pavement, trying to encourage voters to support Proposition 37 on ballots statewide.

Prop. 37 would authorize the issuance of $25 billion in revenue bonds financed by investors to pay for down-payment-assistance loans that middle-class buyers could tap to purchase newly built homes. Buyers who make 200% of the area's median income or less would get up to 17% of a newly built home's purchase price for a down payment.

In Marin County, north of San Francisco, 200% of area median income is just about $400,000, according to analysis of Census Bureau data by the California Budget and Policy Center, a left-leaning advocacy group. But over 600 miles south in Imperial County, a household would have to make $131,000 or less to qualify.

Hertzberg told MarketWatch that the policy was crafted to address both demand and supply, without using taxpayer money.

Hertzberg previously introduced a similar measure in the legislature in 2022, but it went nowhere. Having since left the legislature, Hertzberg - now a private citizen - is trying again. He told MarketWatch that he wanted to focus on boosting middle-class homeownership.

"Politics has become so angry and nasty. This is something that's aspirational for folks," he said, referring to Americans' desire for homeownership. "I'm excited about it and working my heart out to try to help the middle class."

Prop. 37 doesn't have any submitted opponents.

Dennis Shea of the BPC said that among all the statewide housing-related ballot initiatives, Prop. 37 caught his eye because the measure, as described to him by Hertzberg, pairs spurring housing demand with building new housing supply, with the added bonus of not tapping on any taxpayer funds. "It's a revenue bond," he said, "as opposed to a general-obligation bond." GO Bonds are typically funded by taxes, such as income, property and sales taxes while revenue bonds in this case are repaid by homeowners, according to the Hoover Institution's analysis.

3. Reduce homeownership costs by cutting property taxes

Down in Florida, voters will weigh in on Amendment 3, which would lower homeowners' tax bills by putting more of a home's value beyond the reach of cities and counties when they calculate property taxes.

Under current rules in Florida, up to $50,000 of a home's value can be excluded when property taxes are calculated. That exemption under Amendment 3 would rise to $150,000 on Jan. 1, 2027 and $250,000 one year after that, then move higher with inflation years after.

The exemption only applies to Florida residents who are permanent and who have applied for what's called the homestead exemption, and would only count toward non-school taxes. If a home's value is below the exemption level, they would not owe taxes to their city, county or special districts.

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