Homebuilding - DOE Spars With Building Code Officials In Latest Regulatory Cost Attacks

Research evidence excerpt

Homebuilding - DOE Spars With Building Code Officials In Latest Regulatory Cost Attacks

Truist Securities

Equity Research Report July 8, 2026

INDUSTRIALS: Homebuilding

Homebuilding - DOE Spars With Building

Code Officials In Latest Regulatory Cost Jonathan Bettenhausen

404-439-7629 Attacks Jonathan.Bettenhausen@truist.com

Recently, the DOE published an analysis on incremental construction costs of code

implementation, which show that adopting the 2024 IECC adds $14K of construction

5 Page Document costs over the 2006 IECC. Code officials hit back at this analysis, noting that the

calculations were inconsistent with prior governmental findings on incremental costs,

and also noted that code changes should result in energy savings to pay off the

Reasons for this report incremental up-front costs. Broadly, we think that homebuyers, especially on the

affordability margins, would overwhelmingly prefer a lower sticker price than energy

✓ Sector Update cost savings. Regardless, we expect to see more regulatory cost headlines in the back

✓ Commentary on Homebuilding Regulatory half of the year.

Costs

Recap on Regulatory Costs of Construction. We have focused some of our research

and commentary recently on the regulatory costs of building a home. This was

something that the recent housing bill attempted to tackle, and we discussed this in our

note Homebuilding - 21st Century ROAD to Housing Passes Congress; Closer Look At

Bill And Implications. The idea behind this is that regulatory costs are contributing to the

tight affordability environment in the US. An NAHB study recently found that regulatory

costs account for about $131K of the price of the average home in the US. Part of these

regulatory costs are related to building code changes. We discuss this study in our note