Scott Turner Confirmed As HUD Head

Scott Turner was confirmed Wednesday to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, The Associated Press reported. 

Turner, a former Texas lawmaker, oversaw the promotion of the opportunity zone program during the first Trump administration. In his role as HUD secretary, he will direct programs that offer rental assistance to low-income households, support and boost homeownership, and enforce fair housing laws. 

One of his priorities will be the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored entities that together guarantee most U.S. mortgages, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Turner said his department would work with the Treasury Department and Congress on the privatization of the mortgage finance firms, but a timeline and the extent to which privatization of the GSEs is a priority for President Donald Trump is still unclear. 

Turner will also focus on streamlining overall operations at HUD and change the department’s name, the WSJ reported. 

Turner, like others in the Trump administration, is expected to take aim at the housing affordability crisis, embracing a supply-side solution. 

“As a country, we are not building enough homes,” Turner said at his January confirmation hearing. “We need millions of homes, all kinds of homes — multifamily, single-family, duplex, condo, manufacturing housing, you name it — we need housing in our country for individuals and families to have a roof over their head and to call home.” 

Turner moves in to his position as new relaxed lending standards for affordable housing development, which move the maximum loan-to-value ratio up 3 percentage points to 90%, go into effect. That move could translate to millions in equity that developers don’t have to worry about shoring up, Northmarq Vice President for Multifamily Debt and Equity Lena Nepryntseva told Bisnow in December. 

Turner said he would continue to work on the opportunity zone program, a first-Trump-administration tax code creation that was pitched as a way to encourage investment in low-income areas. Without additional intervention, the program is slated to sunset in 2026. 

CRE professionals also anticipate that Biden-era regulations around housing construction, which they say have been increasing construction prices, will be rolled back, allowing for more units to be built.