APARTMENT ADVOCATE
NATIONAL APARTMENT ASSOCIATION
President Trump Signs New Housing Executive Orders
Actions seek to remove barriers to development.
BY BEN HARROLD AND LANDON ERICKSON
On March 13, 2026, President Trump signed two executive orders aimed at increasing housing development and promoting housing affordability and opportunities:“ Promoting Access to Mortgage Credit” and“ Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction.”
The President’ s Executive Order“ Promoting Access to Mortgage Credit” seeks to expand access to mortgage credit by reducing regulatory burdens, especially for small community banks; simplify processes related to capital, liquidity, appraisals and construction; and support modernization and digitization efforts, like replacing wet-signature requirements with e-signatures. While primarily focused on single-family housing, the order will have ripple effects throughout the entire housing market, mainly in the form of reduced compliance costs.
The second Executive Order“ Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction” is more directly applicable to rental housing and should be of great interest to National Apartment Association( NAA) members and affiliate partners, given it reflects alignment on several of the industry’ s priorities with President Trump’ s housing agenda.
NAA President and CEO Bob Pinnegar issued a statement of support, saying:
" Sustainably addressing our nation’ s housing shortage – which affects communities from every corner of our country – is one of the most pressing issues of our time. NAA applauds President Trump and administration leaders for taking decisive action in their most recent executive order to remove key barriers to housing development. From streamlining permitting requirements and reducing
regulatory barriers for new construction to promoting best practices that increase supply, these actions will help meet the need for 4.3 million new apartments by 2035. Our association looks forward to continued work with the administration to boost housing supply and ease affordability challenges for Americans.”
DEEPER DIVE
The President’ s Executive Order on Removing Barriers improves the regulatory landscape in a variety of ways. Learn more about key provisions below that most directly impact the rental housing industry. For a more detailed summary, please refer to the White House’ s fact sheet on the executive order.
Section 1 lays out the order’ s purpose of improving the regulatory landscape at all levels of government to improve housing affordability.
Section 2 compels the relevant government agencies to review, revise and, if applicable, eliminate:
• Environmental and water regulations such as the Construction General Permit for stormwater discharges from construction activity;
• Energy-efficiency, water-use and alternative-energy requirements, and the Energy Efficiency Standards for New Construction of HUD- and USDA- Financed Housing, and reevaluate residential building energy codes;
• The Economic Development Administration’ s guidelines and investment priorities concerning development density; and
• Several other environmental regulations that inhibit housing production.
Industry Win: Several of these actions align with NAA’ s regulatory priorities, including clarification of the ambiguities in Clean Water Act regulation, a re-alignment of energy efficiency standards in HUDand USDA-financed housing construction with state requirements and a number of
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