On Monday, the White House released the 2026 Economic Report of the President prepared by the Council of Economic Advisers. It reviews Trump administration policies, including a key chapter on Protecting and Rebuilding the American Dream of Homeownership, which proposed innovative and creative solutions to past issues that led to the current housing crisis.

“We’ve got a 10 million home shortfall, and we’re operating like it's 1946 instead of 2026,” Paolo Tiramani, CEO of BOXABL, told Just The News.

The Housing Crisis and Its Root Causes

The White House report addressed one of the root causes of the crisis, estimating that the national shortage of millions of single-family homes is primarily due to slowed construction after the 2008 financial crisis. It also noted how prior policies raised house prices and mortgage rates, and blamed excessive regulations for inflating building costs.

Other issues have contributed as well: Many communities have zoning laws that limit or prohibit higher-density housing like apartments, duplexes, or townhomes, especially in desirable areas. Local opposition often blocks new development, artificially constraining supply even where demand is strong and contributing to higher prices.

Furthermore, the cost of building materials (such as lumber, steel, and concrete) and skilled labor has risen sharply in recent years, especially after pandemic-related disruptions. These elevated costs make new home construction less profitable or feasible for many builders, particularly for more affordable or smaller units, slowing overall supply growth even in areas open to development.

In recent years, environmental regulations have increased costs exponentially. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson told Just The News that not only are regulatory costs around a quarter of the budget, but for a new home, another $30,000 of the cost can be attributed to green energy requirements.

"So you can imagine, if you knocked off a quarter of the cost and a good portion of that $30,000, and you had interest rates that were reasonable, you suddenly open up the housing market enormously and the supply becomes more available, and people are willing to move from one house to another house, making the first house available. So this is imminently solvable," Carson noted.

Short-Term and Long-Term Solutions

Former Chief Housing Economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), Dr. Morris A. Davis, proposed to Just The News a two-part workable solution: “We need short-term demand relief, which is to get mortgage rates and interest rates lower. We need to get older people that want to downsize and we need young people that want to buy homes. So the first step of this is to fix interest rates and mortgage rates. Get all rates down. And the president’s plan will help with that.”

The longer term issue, according to Davis, is the 10 million home deficit, which persists because of red tape and bureaucracy. Davis, who is now on the board for BOXABL, said there’s an urgent need for a process to get homes built quickly and safely. The old-school, 1940s technology and processes don’t allow for that, Davis says.

Regulatory Burdens on Factory-Built Homes

Tiramani, whose company designs and mass-produces affordable, factory-built modular homes, further expounded on the issues that have stifled market growth, that directly hit consumers: “From the president’s report, we see that the additional cost of burdensome regulation, which really affects interstate commerce for homes built in the factory, increases costs by 25 to 40% for the American consumer.”

The report highlighted that adopting deregulation best practices could boost housing supply, stabilize prices, improve affordability, increase homeownership, and support broader economic growth.

Innovation in Manufactured and Modular Homes

The red tape and bureaucracy was also addressed by EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) Administrator Lee Zeldin on the podcast. 

He told Solomon, “Homes can easily be built in one place and then placed somewhere hundreds of miles away. That level of innovation for manufacturing, the ability to scale up production in one location where supplies can cost less and everything can be built on site in one place, then it’s just a matter of getting that transported.”

Trump Administration Actions on Mortgages and Lending

President Trump has taken direct steps to make mortgages more affordable by directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities, which helped push average 30-year rates down toward multi-year lows and eased monthly payments for many potential homebuyers.

Additionally, through executive orders aimed at reducing regulatory burdens on community banks and streamlining mortgage rules like Ability-to-Repay and disclosure requirements, his administration has worked to increase lending competition and lower overall borrowing costs for American families seeking to achieve homeownership.