The U.S. housing market has a longstanding shortage of single-family homes that cannot be corrected overnight. Houses can, however, be built more quickly if sales conditions cooperate and effective regulations are adopted to facilitate rather than foil new-home construction. Instead, they weathered difficult sales conditions that most across the new-home construction industry expected would ease last year. Elevated financing costs and uncertainty linked to President Donald Trump’s signature tariff policies have consistently been cited by home builders as undermining confidence in new-home construction. He anticipates only “a slight pickup” in single-family new-home starts and sales in 2026.