The first few months of 2026 have been eventful for HUD, and for national housing policy more broadly.
In early January, President Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social post that the U.S. would bar large institutional investors from buying single-family homes in an effort to boost affordability and homeownership, surprising some in the multifamily industry. He has since touched on the proposal in his World Economic Forum speech and State of the Union address, and elements have been added into the latest edition of the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act legislative package, released March 2.
Representing the largest housing package in decades, it contains the vast majority of the Senate’s ROAD to Housing Act, most of the housing provisions from the House’s 21st Century Housing Act and a bill that bars major investors from buying certain SFHs.
Meanwhile, HUD has continued to tighten rules for residents, barring families with mixed immigration status from living together, ordering citizenship and eligibility checks for 200,000 tenants flagged in the new EIV-SAVE Tenant Match Report and rolling back a requirement to give a 30-day notice before eviction. At the same time, HUD moved to allow public housing agencies to institute work requirements and term limits.
Read on for Multifamily Dive’s coverage of federal housing actions so far in 2026.
