One year ago, President Joe Biden delivered what would become his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. Unusual for that moment was a briefing earlier in the day between reporters and key Biden administration leaders to discuss issues of increasing importance to voters involving the cost and availability of housing.
That night in the chamber of the House of Representatives, Biden dedicated a section of the highly visible policy speech to housing issues. This included a proposal for helping more first-generation homebuyers to enter the increasingly expensive housing market, along with a plan to spur construction and bolster supply that would bring down prices.
The president asked for help to accomplish these goals from a narrowly divided Congress, and he began speaking more regularly about the cost of housing on the campaign trail.
But the policy ambitions were not to be. During the summer, after a widely panned debate performance against resurgent rival Donald Trump, Biden exited the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor.
Harris floated her own policy plans for housing, but they went up in smoke when she was defeated by Trump in the November presidential election.
Speculation under Trump
At that point, speculation about Trump’s policy priorities accelerated. What would ongoing discussions of tariffs mean for homebuilders and the pursuit of more supply? Would the conservative Project 2025 policy document be followed and lead to the “gutting” of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)? What would happen to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)?
More importantly, would housing policy — something that was not a significant focus during Trump’s first term — attain more prominence on his second-term agenda
Trump’s first major speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night potentially signaled where the president’s ongoing priorities will be. And if the speech itself was any indication, then major housing policy moves are unlikely to be part of the equation for a while.
Mortgage rates got only a single, cursory mention during the speech — which became the longest presidential address to a joint session of Congress in history, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara. And despite earning a day-one executive order, housing affordability was not mentioned.
Instead, looking for more direct policy signals from agencies like HUD and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) are likely to be bigger indicators of the administration’s housing positions, as well as potential changes to the regulatory posture of the CFPB.
Political wrangling
Republican lawmakers have not put forward detailed housing policy proposals yet this year, adding to uncertainty about how the new administration plans to address affordability and supply issues beyond the initial executive order.
Housing insiders — including a former HUD official who previously spoke with HousingWire — have also signaled that staffing cuts at key housing agencies will have an impact on the government’s ability to achieve the agencies’ missions, while acknowledging that the extent of future cuts remains unclear. Administration officials and people with knowledge of HUD’s plans have denied that these cuts will be widespread.
Democratic lawmakers have demanded that cuts to housing agencies be stopped. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, recently attempted to hand deliver a letter to HUD Secretary Scott Turner and voice concerns about the impacts of these cuts.
But with Democrats locked out of majorities in Congress, recourse is limited even as the House and Senate operate on razor-thin political margins. Getting any major legislation done will likely require bipartisan collaboration, although Republicans have leeway to set the legislative agenda for both chambers due to their majorities.
But even Democrats seem to be taking a less-active role in shaping the housing debate, beyond their condemnation of moves to cut housing agencies and programs. In the official Democratic response to the president’s speech on Tuesday night, housing costs were also only given a cursory mention by Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).
“Grocery and home prices are going up, not down — and [the president] hasn’t laid out a credible plan to deal with either,” Slotkin said in the rebuttal.
Even with the megaphone granted to Democrats in response to the president’s speech, the party prioritized tariffs, national security and the controversies surrounding the U.S. DOGE Service, forgoing any substantive mention of housing issues. This represents a remarkable change from the housing posture displayed by the Democrats who were in power in early 2024.
