This year the Home Builders Association of Greater New Orleans celebrates its 85th anniversary, and the organization is honoring the occasion by doubling down on its mission to strengthen housing resiliency, help stabilize insurance markets and support the workforce that powers residential construction.
The organization’s Residential Housing Summit, held on Jan. 13 in Kenner, convened industry leaders and policymakers to address a raft of changes impacting Louisiana’s construction landscape.
“The summit brought together data-driven forecasts and actionable insights from national and state leaders,” said Dan Mills, CEO of the Home Builders Association of Greater New Orleans. “Our goal was to give members the information they need to anticipate regulatory changes, adjust pricing strategies and align with advocacy priorities for the year ahead.”
Tariffs and supply-chain volatility continue to strain project budgets, he said, while immigration enforcement has tightened an already limited labor pool. At the same time, builders are navigating restrictive lending conditions, evolving building codes and growing climate-related risks that affect construction costs and insurability.
“Those pressures don’t exist in isolation,” Mills said. “They compound each other, and that’s why policy clarity and coordination matter right now.”
Strengthening Standards and Enforcement
Keynote speaker Brad Hassert, executive director of the Louisiana State Licensing Board of Contractors, opened with a policy shift affecting nearly every residential roof replacement in Louisiana. Act 239, which took effect on Aug. 1, 2025, requires contractors to obtain permits and schedule inspections for all roofing work, making it a legal violation to begin a roof replacement without prior approval.
Hassert said the new requirement is part of a broader consolidation of licensing and code enforcement between the Licensing Board and the Louisiana State Uniform Construction Code Council, a change intended to reduce inconsistencies across parishes while strengthening statewide oversight of residential construction.
Another significant change was the creation of a Residential Roofing License for any roofing work valued at $7,500 or more. Since Jan. 1, 2026, contractors are required to pass a trade exam and meet full licensure standards, a move aimed at curbing unlicensed activity in one of the state’s most claims-prone segments.
Hassert also outlined updates to inspection protocols that allow compliance to be verified remotely, including digital photo verification and formal recognition of training programs tied to the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety’s Fortified construction standards.
“These reforms are about accountability and consistency,” Hassert said. “If we want insurers to trust the housing stock, we have to show that the work being done meets verifiable standards.”
Aligning Insurance Incentives with Risk Reduction
That focus on documentation and enforcement carried into the insurance discussion, where keynote speaker Kirk Talbot linked construction improvements to measurable reductions in risk.
Talbot, chairman of the Louisiana Senate Insurance Committee, outlined legislative actions designed to tie mitigation more closely to insurance pricing, including an expanded Wind Mitigation Income Tax Deduction that offers greater tax relief for homeowners making code-compliant improvements.
He said the renewed and expanded Fortified Roof Program, which provides grants and insurance discounts for stronger roofs, is already delivering measurable reductions in claims exposure.
“We’re trying to reward behavior that lowers risk,” Talbot said. “If homeowners harden their homes, the system should recognize that — and insurers should price it accordingly.”
These reforms are about accountability and consistency. If we want insurers to trust the housing stock, we have to show that the work being done meets verifiable standards.
– Brad Hassert, executive director of the Louisiana State Licensing Board of Contractors
What’s Driving Up Costs
Robert Dietz, senior economist for the National Association of Home Builders, drew on Federal Reserve Economic Data to outline trends in housing costs, labor supply and consumer credit.
He said decades of relatively predictable economic cycles were interrupted by two historic surges in perceived economic unpredictability that significantly eroded confidence in the economy’s stability: the pandemic shock of 2020 and an even higher level of uncertainty in 2025.
Unlike earlier disruptions, Dietz said, the current economic environment reflects prolonged ambiguity around inflation control, interest-rate policy, fiscal sustainability and geopolitical risk.
Housing inflation has become especially persistent, with costs rising faster and cooling slower than inflation across the rest of the consumer economy. The result is that housing is now the most durable contributor to inflation.
“This isn’t a single shock,” Dietz said. “It’s an extended period where businesses and households don’t have clear signals about what policy looks like six months or a year out.”
On the supply side, Dietz said labor shortages continue to limit production, with construction job openings remaining elevated. Single-family construction in Louisiana and the New Orleans metro area has yet to return to mid-2000s levels, leaving housing production structurally constrained.
Regulation remains another major housing cost driver. Dietz said nearly $94,000 — about 24% of the price of a new home — stems from regulatory requirements, with zoning approvals, fees, building code changes and construction delays directly pushing prices higher.
Dietz also pointed to emerging stress in consumer credit, particularly student loans. After a temporary decline during the pandemic-era payment pause, student loan delinquencies surged once repayments resumed, climbing far above their Great Recession–era peak and outpacing mortgage, auto and credit card delinquencies.
Beyond Advocacy
In response to these pressures, HBAGNO has moved beyond advocacy to help build the data systems and programs needed to support a more resilient housing market.
Through its Wind Mitigation Task Force, the association pushed the Louisiana Department of Insurance to create a centralized database of wind mitigation surveys and Fortified Roof certificates and to integrate local roof permit and inspection records, giving insurers clearer statewide evidence of housing resilience.
The association is also working with GNO, Inc., on long-term flood insurance solutions tied to FEMA’s Risk Rating 2.0 and the National Flood Insurance Program, including discussions around a national catastrophic backstop to reduce premium volatility.
Through the Home Builders Institute, HBAGNO delivers Department of Labor–approved training programs for high school students, community colleges and reentry programs, while a newly launched Latino Council aims to better support and integrate the Spanish-speaking workforce, which now represents roughly 30% of the industry but is often underserved by traditional training, licensing and advancement pathways.
Eighty-five years after its founding, HBAGNO has evolved into an organization that helps shape the residential construction industry locally and nationally, bridging policy, data and workforce development in an environment where resilience, affordability and insurance access are increasingly inseparable.
Kelly Hite is the associate news editor for Biz New Orleans, responsible for delivering daily business news on BizNewOrleans.com, focusing on developments that impact the greater New Orleans area and southeast Louisiana. She may be reached via email at KellyH@BizNewOrleans.com.
