President Donald Trump Signs Executive Order to Cut Red Tape to Build More Homes and Tackle Housing Affordability

President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at reducing regulations that slow down new home construction and push the costs of building higher as part of a broader effort to tackle the nation's housing affordability crisis.

The order signed on Friday comes a day after the Senate's passage of the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which seeks to expand housing supply and reduce regulatory barriers to construction.

The bill has dozens of housing reforms aimed at making it easier to build homes and obtain financing to buy them. It also puts forth a ban on major institutional investors buying single-family homes.

The order signed by Trump directs federal agencies to review and potentially eliminate rules that delay residential home construction or increase building costs, including permitting requirements, environmental reviews, and certain building standards.

Officials will also consider changes to policies affecting manufactured housing, development density and other building standards that critics say can constrain housing supply.

America currently faces a shortage of 4.03 million homes as new construction faltered last year, according to the 2026 U.S. Housing Supply Gap report from Realtor.com.

Economists at Realtor.com found that the housing deficit persisted through 2025 as construction fell nearly 50,000 units short of demand. Despite 1.36 million housing starts, the creation of 1.4 million new households meant that the cumulative housing deficit continued to widen.

To address the growing crisis, the White House says this latest executive order is part of a broader deregulatory agenda to expand housing supply and help more Americans achieve homeownership.

The order is one of several housing-related actions announced by the Trump administration this week.

A separate executive order on Friday focuses on expanding access to mortgage credit by easing regulatory burdens on lenders, particularly smaller community banks with the goal of making home loans easier for qualified buyers.