Congress Is Moving on Housing. Trump’s Approach Still Favors Deregulation.
Affordability remains one of the biggest issues on voters’ minds as we move toward the midterms. And the war with Iran has only sharpened those concerns by raising fears about gas prices, inflation, and household costs.
Housing affordability remains one of the top concerns for voters, and Washington is starting to respond.
In recent weeks, Congress has taken action on housing. The House and Senate have both passed housing bills. Trump issued an initial executive order in January focused on institutional investors and, more recently, signed two more housing-related executive orders. Understanding the differences between these policy approaches helps clarify both the competing economic ideas at play and what it takes to build a serious bipartisan bill.
Whatever the motivation, it is good news that Washington is finally giving serious attention to the housing crisis.
There seems to be broad agreement about the core problem: the country has not built enough housing. That shortage has pushed prices up and worsened affordability. All three approaches are aimed, in one way or another, at making it easier to build housing.
Building housing today is not just expensive; it is complicated.
Projects often stall for two reasons. The first is approvals. Developers can spend years navigating environmental reviews, zoning rules, and permitting processes before construction even begins. The second is financing. Even when a project is approved, it still needs to make financial sense. If the costs are too high or financing is too difficult to secure, the project simply does not get built.
That is the system all three approaches are trying to change. Two examples make that clearer.
The first is whether a project gets built at all. Many housing developments never move forward because the numbers do not work. The Senate bill tries to address that directly. It expands federal financing tools, raises loan limits for multifamily housing, and uses existing programs to help more projects make financial sense. The House bill moves in the same direction but does less. Trump’s approach is different. His executive orders focus on making credit easier to access by reducing regulatory burdens on lenders. That may increase lending, but it does so with fewer safeguards.
The second is how long it takes to turn a plan into actual housing. Converting an empty office building into apartments, for example, can take years because of permitting requirements, environmental review, and overlapping approvals. The Senate bill seeks to speed up that process by streamlining reviews and reducing duplication, while keeping core protections in place. The House bill reduces some barriers but in a more limited way. Trump’s orders go further, pushing agencies and states to cut rules more aggressively.
That is the real divide. All three approaches are trying to increase housing supply. But they differ on how to balance speed with safeguards, and access with protection from abuse.
To be clear, none of this legislation will solve the housing crisis. However, the Senate bill is a serious piece of legislation. In this hyper-partisan environment, it is trying to build an actual legislative path forward with support from both Republicans and Democrats.
There is no clear timeline for reconciling the House and Senate bills, and the process could take months. Trump’s executive orders do not appear to have killed the legislative push. But they may strengthen Republicans who want a final bill built more around deregulation and less around federal investment and safeguards.
Hopefully, the pressure of facing voters in November will lead to a serious effort to address the affordability crisis. The question now is whether that pressure will be enough to produce something meaningful.
Endnotes
Senate passage of bipartisan housing legislation (vote and overview):
https://apnews.com/article/8c15c9600bf0bd40e2420785aa5af20cReuters summary of Senate bill provisions (financing tools, loan limits, supply focus):
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/housing-affordability-bill-sailing-toward-us-senate-passage-2026-03-12/House “Housing for the 21st Century Act” summary:
https://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2026-02-03_-_sbs_-_housing_for_the_21st_century_act.pdfHouse Financial Services Committee description of bill priorities:
https://financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=411019Trump Executive Order on removing regulatory barriers to construction (March 2026):
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/removing-regulatory-barriers-to-affordable-home-construction/Trump Executive Order on promoting access to mortgage credit (March 2026):
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/promoting-access-to-mortgage-credit/Trump Executive Order on institutional investors in housing (January 2026):
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/01/stopping-wall-street-from-competing-with-main-street-homebuyers/
Good overview. Thanks!