Trump’s Regulatory Freeze Brings Uncertainty To The Housing Market

Shortly after taking the oath of office on Monday, President Donald Trump signed several executive orders to freeze or undo Biden administration policies. 

A regulatory freeze, which is pending review, ordered all executive departments not to “propose or issue any rule in any manner, including by sending a rule to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) until a department or agency head appointed or designated by the President after noon on January 20, 2025, reviews and approves the rule.”

The freeze also ordered departments to withdraw any rules sent to the OFR but not published in the Federal Register. It also wants them to consider postponing for 60 days “the effective date for any rules that have been published in the Federal Register, or any rules that have been issued in any manner but have not taken effect.”

Former President Joe Biden delivered 872 pages over the weekend to be published in the Federal Register. Forbes reported that during his last few weeks in office, Biden issued 243 rules across 7,641 pages published in the Federal Register.

The freeze mirrors the one issued at the start of Trump’s first presidential term in 2017 and a similar move that former President Barack Obama ordered in January 2009 for pending regulations from the George W. Bush administration. 

Monday’s executive actions did not highlight initiatives that affect housing. But Robert Litan, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an attorney specializing in complex antitrust and business litigation, said that the regulatory freeze is the tip of the iceberg.

Brookings published an article titled “Trump’s regulatory housecleaning won’t be easy,” which is authored by Litan and Peter M. Shane. It compared the current freeze to the one in 2017.

“In his first term, he had what was called a two-for-one policy, which was for every new rule you proposed, you had to rescind two others. Now, there is speculation that they want to go to a 10-to-one policy,” Litan explained in an interview with HousingWire.

“[We] studied the success of his rescissions in his first term, because a lot of them were challenged in court, and depending on how you count them, somewhere between 20% to 30% of them survived. The rest of them did not survive legal challenges. So, you can imagine that if and when they start a much bigger regulatory role, they will face an avalanche of legal challenges,” he added.

Cody Bjugan, a real estate developer and founder of Allied Development, said he can see how the regulatory freeze could create more housing market uncertainty.

“It will impact construction and development initiatives surrounding housing affordability, and even financing,” Bjugan said. “If President Trump decides to privatize government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, significant changes could occur in mortgage availability and interest rates.” 

Doug Perry, strategic financing adviser at Real Estate Bees, is concerned about the lack of clarity provided by the regulatory freeze.

“The pure volume of executive orders Trump has produced in his initial 24 hours in office is substantial,” he said. “Analyzing the actual meanings and impact of the orders is a bit more opaque, and the path to accomplishing the objectives of the orders isn’t clear. This lack of clarity on how to do it creates uncertainty, and markets are trying to factor in how that risk plays out.

“The most critical is the order declaring emergency price relief on housing,“ Perry added. “Just about everyone acknowledges it is a critical problem, but with no clear-cut means to accomplish the objective provided in the order, it doesn’t provide any clarity on what actions will take place. What it does signify is a new era of reduced oversight and regulation for housing and lending, with the focus on housing price relief.”