Mortgage lenders have renewed their calls to slash Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance premiums to help buyers struggling with elevated housing costs and mortgage rates.

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Real estate and mortgage industry trade groups welcomed a promise by the Trump administration to address high home prices through an executive order to federal agencies instructing them to deliver “emergency price relief.”

But the order, entitled “Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis,” was short on specifics.

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Noting that “many Americans are unable to purchase homes due to historically high prices, in part due to regulatory requirements that alone account for 25 percent of the cost of constructing a new home,” President Trump ordered the heads “of all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief, consistent with applicable law, to the American people and increase the prosperity of the American worker. This shall include pursuing appropriate actions to: lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply.”

The Mortgage Bankers Association on Tuesday renewed calls for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to slash FHA mortgage insurance premiums and end “life of loan” requirements that require borrowers to keep paying them until they pay off their loans.

“President Trump campaigned on lowering costs for Americans, and we appreciate housing supply and affordability being included in an executive order on this issue,” MBA President and CEO Bob Broeksmit said, in a statement. “We support efforts to cut unnecessary regulatory red tape and to pursue federal housing program enhancements that make renting and homeownership more attainable and sustainable.”

That includes MBA members’ “strong belief that the Federal Housing Administration should eliminate its life of loan premium requirement and strongly consider a reasonable reduction to FHA mortgage insurance premium levels to reduce housing costs for low- to moderate-income Americans,” Broeksmit said.

In written questions to Scott Turner, Trump’s nominee to be the next Secretary of Housing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, asked him if he would instead be in favor of raising FHA premiums and limiting access to FHA loans to first-time homebuyers, as proposed in Project 2025, a policy document coauthored by former Trump Secretary of Housing Ben Carson.

In a preface to the 13 pages of questions she posed to Turner last week, Warren acknowledged that the U.S. is “experiencing a nationwide housing shortage” with approximately 5 million new units needed to fill the gap.

“There are a number of explanations for this crisis, including unnecessary local barriers and land use restrictions, decades of government disinvestment, and the high cost of capital for construction,” Warren wrote.

But Warren outlined a number of areas where she was concerned that HUD’s ability to address housing affordability might be diminished under Trump, citing Project 2025 or actions taken during the first Trump administration.

“President-elect Trump has suggested that undocumented immigrants are to blame for America’s housing crisis and called for mass deportations,” Warren wrote. “However, roughly 30 percent of construction workers in America are immigrants, and economists have found that mass deportation would reduce the supply of skilled construction workers by 1.5 million, driving up the cost of housing even further.”

Although immigration policies are outside of HUD’s purview, Warren asked Turner if he believed immigration is the primary cause of housing unaffordability, and if he supported mass deportation as a solution to the housing crisis.

In issuing a slew of executive orders Monday, Trump promised to “protect the American people against invasion” by declaring a national emergency at the Mexican border, deploying the military, and building detention camps to deport millions of immigrants.

The National Association of Realtors issued a statement Tuesday applauding Trump “for bringing attention to the dire need to address the urgent and ongoing challenges surrounding housing affordability and supply. Our team has communicated these issues to the President’s team, highlighting that the lack of supply is the number one driver of housing cost and, in turn, is hurting the housing market and shutting out first-time buyers.”

NAR said it has encouraged the Trump administration “to focus on property rights, inventory, affordability, and accessibility to housing, which would help stimulate the economy and give more Americans the ability to build generational wealth.”

“The President’s executive order underscores the critical need for bold, coordinated action to lower housing costs and increase the availability of homes for families across this country,” the group said. “NAR has long advocated for policies encouraging housing development, improving affordability, and supporting sustainable homeownership opportunities. We look forward to working with the administration in the next steps and putting this executive order into motion.”

The National Association of Home Builders, which has expressed concerns about the potential impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs on housing costs, commended Trump on Tuesday “for acting on day one to make housing a national priority by issuing an executive order that seeks to lower the cost and increase the supply of housing.”

But the group pointed to a 10-point plan it released in May to ease the housing affordability crisis, which called on policymakers to end tariffs on Canadian lumber shipments and building materials from China.

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Email Matt Carter

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