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The Trump administration is eyeing declaring a national housing emergency this fall as the Republican Party looks to make affordability a core component of its 2026 midterm campaigns.
The federal government is exploring ways to alleviate housing costs and increase supply, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told The Washington Examiner Monday.
He didn’t outline a specific action plan beyond the emergency declaration, but he said the Trump administration is exploring the standardization of local zoning and building codes. He also said the president is looking into ways to reduce closing costs and is considering issuing tariff exemptions for construction items.
Bessent said that while the administration doesn’t want to “step into the business” of state and local governments, “everything is on the table.”
That includes continuing to pressure the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. Bessent said elevated rates have contributed to high mortgage costs in the postpandemic housing market and worsened affordability. The Trump administration has been pushing the central bank to cut interest rates for months, but the Fed has maintained them for five meetings in a row. As of now, interest rates sit between 4.25% and 4.5%.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has come under fire for refusing to cut interest rates, but during an Aug. 22 speech, he hinted at the prospect of a reduction at the next meeting, which ends Sept. 17. But Powell also said it is particularly difficult in this environment of escalating and erratic tariffs and major edicts from the federal government to distinguish noise from cyclical economic behavior.
The president’s housing policies so far have been considered a mixed bag, with a major expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and subsequent doubling of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s budget counteracted by the gutting of programs like the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.
More and more Americans find themselves priced out of homes as mortgage rates have doubled in the last two years and aspiring homebuyers are forced to keep renting. Home prices rose at their fastest rate in July, coming in at 1.4% year-over-year. Home sales fell 1.1% month-over-month, according to Redfin data.
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