New Executive Orders Target Mortgage Regulatory Relief and Housing Supply
On March 13, 2026, the White House issued two Executive Orders aimed at overhauling the residential mortgage market and streamlining housing development.
Promoting Access to Mortgage Credit, among other matters, orders the CFPB and federal banking regulators to “tailor” Reg Z requirements, including potentially broader Qualified Mortgage safe harbors for portfolio loans and an exemption for small-balance mortgages from current points and fees caps. It orders the CFPB to consider replacing rigid TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure timing rules with a materiality-based standard, to reduce closing delays and technical defaults. For construction lenders, it instructs federal banking regulators to exclude one-to-four family residential projects from Commercial Real Estate concentration limits, freeing up capital for builders. The order mandates a “correction-first” supervisory posture for technical errors and directs the CFPB to raise Home Mortgage Disclosure Act thresholds for smaller institutions. Finally, it instructs the Secretaries of HUD, Agriculture and VA, along with the Director of FHFA and CFPB, to phase out the need for “wet-signatures” on disclosures, applications and closing documents, establish uniform federal acceptance for e-notes and remote online notarization, and modernize right of rescission policies to specifically allow for secure electronic and digital forms for federal housing programs.
Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing, among other matters, mandates a review of environmental and energy-efficiency standards, including Clean Water Act reform and the establishment of categorical exclusions for housing projects from lengthy environmental impact reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act. It targets the scaling back of energy-efficiency mandates for HUD- and USDA-financed housing to reduce per unit construction costs. Finally, the order seeks to influence local zoning by incentivizing municipalities to adopt streamlined permitting and eliminate restrictive urban growth boundaries as a criterion for awarding discretionary grants.
