President Trump returned to the White House with pledges to address the housing shortage and affordability crisis. But his moves to crack down on trade policy, immigration and the size of the federal government threaten to compound the strain on homeowners he has vowed to ease.

Though the Trump administration has stressed home ownership as “a ticket to the American dream” as it attempts to herald in “the golden age of America,” housing has appeared to take somewhat of a backseat to the issues of foreign policy and the border in the opening months of the president's second term. And some of his moves on those fronts — like levying tariffs and upping deportations — risk contributing to higher costs and hurdles to homeownership for everyday Americans.

“You could have maybe imagined a world where Trump, with his history as a developer, might have had common cause with housing advocates who think that we need to build more housing,” said Katherine Einstein, associate political science professor at Boston University and a leader of the Housing Politics Lab.

But Trump’s first administration didn’t seem to make housing affordability much of a priority either, Einstein said, and the signals so far from his second term “leave me profoundly pessimistic about whether fair housing law will continue to be enforced, and whether we’ll see fewer federal funding for the production of new housing.”

High housing costs and mortgage rates have hampered prospective buyers from jumping into the squeezed market, even as areas across the country are struggling to keep up with demand. Pending home sales, based on the signed contracts for existing homes, hit a record low at the start of the year.

Meanwhile, homelessness in the U.S. hit its highest level on record in 2024. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) tallied more than 770,000 people experiencing homelessness on a single night, an 18 percent increase from 2023.

In plain terms, the country is “facing a housing crisis,” Einstein said.

Housing affordability was a top issue in the 2024 election, drawing promises from presidential candidates to address the shortage and help prospective buyers. The Trump platform partly blamed open borders for driving up the cost of housing — and vowed to open portions of federal land for new builds, promote homeownership through tax incentives, bring down mortgage rates “by slashing inflation” and “cut unnecessary regulations that raise housing costs.”

On his first day in office, Trump

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