President Donald Trump has made housing affordability a key component of his administration’s efforts to reduce the cost of living.

Since returning to the White House for a second term, Trump and his team have proposed a broad array of ideas to ensure that more Americans can achieve the dream of homeownership at a time when many are priced out and many are skeptical about whether they will ever purchase a home.

Here are the proposals to resurrect housing affordability raised by the Trump administration.

1. Portable Mortgages

Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, indicated in a recent post on X that the administration is considering portable and assumable mortgages.

A portable mortgage allows homeowners to transfer their existing mortgages, with interest rate and terms, to a new property, avoiding penalties and potentially saving thousands of dollars.

With an assumable mortgage, the buyer inherits the seller’s existing mortgage terms, including interest rate, repayment schedule, and monthly payments, subject to lender approval.

Although the country’s top housing regulator was short on specifics, these moves could potentially alleviate supply constraints that were amplified at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To cushion economic blows from the government’s response to the crisis that shut down the global economy, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to nearly zero percent.

The policy decision helped lower borrowing costs across the board, including mortgage rates.

U.S. households used this as an opportunity to either purchase their first home or refinance their current mortgage rate. But it also resulted in reduced housing supply entering the U.S. real estate market, creating a lock-in effect.

Because approximately 53 percent of today’s mortgages are below 4 percent, homeowners are reluctant to list their properties for sale.

By doing so, they would pay a larger mortgage rate—the current average contract interest rate is 6.34 percent—and face higher home prices.

Ultra-low interest rates were not the sole factor contributing to the nation’s limited housing stock, but they exacerbated the problem.

In a May paper, Fed economists found that golden handcuffs intensified an already tight housing market, driving up home prices.

“These effects were entirely due to historically tight initial housing market conditions,“ they wrote. ”We show that in a more balanced housing market as in 2019, the same lock-in shock would have had little to no impact on prices or tightness.”

New housing construction has not recovered from the global financial crisis nearly 20 years ago, with total housing unit starts about 37 percent below the pre-crisis peak.

Despite construction activity ticking up in recent years, the U.S. housing deficit has ballooned to 4.7 million, according to research from Zillow.

2. 50-year Mortgages

The president recently proposed the creation of 50-year mortgages to provide an additional option for families to achieve the dream of homeownership.

The proposal sparked a swift debate among industry experts and on social media.

Jeff DerGurahian, head economist and chief investment officer at loanDepot, outlined its advantages and drawbacks.

“Extending loan terms would lower monthly payments by stretching amortization, but typically come with higher interest rates and slower equity build,” DerGurahian said in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.

“While it could provide a modest affordability lift for first-time buyers, the tradeoff would be paying more interest over time.”

According to UBS economists, only 4 percent of the total mortgage would be paid off in 10 years, and just 11 percent would be retired after 20 years.

“In our view, this compares unfavorably to the 30-year mortgage, under which 46 percent of the mortgage is retired in year 20,” they said in a Nov. 12 note.

But many households, should they accept the 50-year mortgage, may not hold it for the entire duration, said Glenn Phillips, CEO and lead economic analyst at Lake Homes Realty.

“Most people sell before they pay off a mortgage now, so in some ways this is not very important to most people,” Phillips told The Epoch Times.

“This is despite all the graphs on social media showing how much more interest is paid over the full 50 years—that is just not going to happen often.”

Still, Phillips said, homeowners could be underwater and struggle to sell their homes if their properties do not appreciate in value.

“If the monthly payment is lower, some buyers will now buy ’more house' and take on an even bigger debt,” he said. “This creates lender and homeowner default risks.”

For now, there appears to be an appetite for this proposal.

A recent poll by BadCredit.org found that 45 percent of Americans would consider a 50-year mortgage.

3. Federal Lands

Rather than solely concentrating on financing, there also needs to be an emphasis on building, according to Charles Urquhart, founder of Fixed Income Resources and adjunct professor of finance at Loyola University Maryland.

“If only we put half as much creative effort into physical building as we did subsidizing for financing, maybe we'd solve this pesky housing problem already,” he told The Epoch Times.

Releasing federal lands is being floated as a possible solution to improve the national housing stock.

The federal government controls approximately one-third of U.S. land, with a significant portion located in the country’s western regions, including Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.

During the 2024 election campaign, Trump committed to opening up federal land for housing construction, building on the previous administration’s use of federal land for affordable housing.

In March, the administration established a joint task force between the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of the Interior to develop affordable housing on federal lands.

One idea that has garnered momentum is leasing—not selling—federal land to states, cities, and public housing authorities.

This proposal would eliminate local zoning restrictions and come with lower taxes, which proponents argue could reduce construction costs, accelerate development, and enhance affordability.

“Working together, our agencies can take inventory of underused federal properties, transfer or lease them to states or localities to address housing needs, and support the infrastructure required to make development viable—all while ensuring affordability remains at the core of the mission,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a joint statement.

The Biden administration sold 20 acres of unused federal land in Nevada, valued at almost $20 million, for $2,000.

4. Credit Scores

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is inching closer to adopting FICO 10T, alongside VantageScore 4.0, for U.S. mortgages, following through on an announcement made in July.

Earlier in November, Pulte confirmed on X that the agency is reviewing an arrangement with FICO on implementing its new FICO 10T.

This is a credit-scoring model that monitors how consumers manage credit over time—typically 24 months—rather than a snapshot.

VantageScore 4.0, meanwhile, is another modern credit scoring tool that uses trended data and machine learning to assess consumers’ creditworthiness.

“This would be great for consumers and the safety of the mortgage market, to have both FICO 10T Score and Vantage Score 4.0,” he said.

U.S. Mortgage Insurers called it “a major step for aspiring homeowners.”

“As long-term holders and managers of first loss risk in the housing finance system, U.S. Mortgage Insurers supports the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s goal of modernizing the credit score models used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (collectively the [government-sponsored enterprises]) to promote prudent risk management while efficiently serving low down payment borrowers,” the group said in a July statement.

5. Interest Rates

For months, the president and senior administration officials have urged the Fed to lower the benchmark federal funds rate, arguing that elevated rates make it more expensive for consumers and taxpayers.

This key policy rate influences borrowing costs for businesses, households, and governments.

Despite Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s warning of a potential pause at next month’s policy meeting, investors are betting on a third consecutive quarter-point rate cut in December.

U.S. officials and member of the Fed Board of Governors Stephen Miran have said that the central bank should be more aggressive in the current easing cycle.

Pulte said in a Nov. 9 X post, “By keeping interest rates artificially high, the Federal Reserve, specifically Jerome Powell, is making home ownership more costly.”

Still, traders’ rate-cut expectations over the next 12 months have helped to bring down the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield, a vital standard the mortgage market tracks.

The 10-year yield has hovered at about 4 percent for the past month, down from the year’s high of 4.8 percent.

Trump anticipates that interest rates will come down even more.

“We’re gonna get interest rates down,” Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Nov. 10. “But even with interest rates up, the economy is the strongest it’s ever been.”