Washington Update From NAR

September 3, 2025

FHA Announces Transition to New Appraisal Reporting in 2026

On August 27, the FHA announced (in FHA INFO 2025-42) their intention to transition appraisal reporting to the new Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) 3.6 beginning in spring 2026 for early adopters. They will announce a timeline of the transition plan, updated policies, and technical specifications later this year, with a transition period similar to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) to allow for both legacy and UAD 3.6 appraisal reports for a period of time.

Both GSEs will begin their early adoption period for the new appraisal reports on Sept. 8, 2025, with broad production beginning in January 2026, and a mandate to use the new appraisal reporting in November 2026.

The new appraisal report is designed to also accommodate USDA and VA loans, although those entities have not yet announced adoption timelines.

HUD Withdraws Translated Materials

Following an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will transition all operations and programs to English-only communication, effective immediately. HUD will no longer provide non-English translation services, and all correspondence, publications, and digital content will be produced exclusively in English. Printed or digital materials referencing translation services—or presented in languages other than English—will be removed from HUD offices and HUD-funded facilities and replaced with English-only versions.

Language assistance will only be provided where legally required, including for individuals with hearing, vision, or related disabilities. As part of the immediate rollout, HUD has withdrawn all translated documents from circulation and removed them from its website. This withdrawal affects resources previously used by REALTORS® and their clients to navigate federal housing programs.

The withdrawn materials include multilingual guidance and forms explaining FHA loan requirements, disaster recovery assistance for families affected by natural disasters, Housing Choice Voucher program information, and healthy homes initiatives. These resources helped REALTORS® serve clients with limited English proficiency (LEP) to understand complex program requirements and application processes.

NAR’s Advocacy Team met with HUD leadership on Monday, August 25 to understand the scope of these changes and to share their potential impact on members and clients. HUD welcomed NAR’s input on the necessity of translated documents to the homebuying process. NAR also discussed the prospect of hosting an archive of translated materials on its website for use by members. NAR is committed to helping members serve buyers of all backgrounds and continues to engage with HUD and policymakers on these issues.

Senate Passes Trigger Leads Bill, Heads to President for Enactment

The Senate unanimously passed the Homeowners Privacy Protection Act of 2025, a bill that severely restricts the use of trigger leads. The bill previously passed the House and now heads to President Trump’s desk for his signature and enactment into law.

NAR and a broad coalition of partners fought for years to end the use of mortgage credit trigger leads, an abusive practice where after applying for a mortgage loan, credit reporting agencies sell a consumer’s data, without the consumer’s knowledge or consent, to other competing lenders or mortgage brokers as leads. Consumers are then inundated with dozens of calls, emails, and texts from mortgage brokers and lenders looking to take business from the original lender. Consumers are not aware that the information that they’ve applied for a loan has been sold and have limited opportunities to opt out. Consumers are left frustrated, often thinking that their agent or lender has sold their information when the opposite is true.

Both chambers had previously passed their own version of the Homeowners Privacy Protection Act of 2025 in June. However, the Senate decided to take up the House-passed version, a bill that includes a study of the usefulness of text trigger leads, and passed the bill without objection.

After President Trump’s signature, trigger leads will be severely limited starting in six months. NAR will continue to monitor the implementation and ensure that our members and consumers are protected.

NAR particularly thanks Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Jack Reed (D-RI), and Representatives John Rose (R-TN) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY) for their leadership on this issue.

Senate Committee Unanimously Passes Bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs unanimously passed the bipartisan Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream to Housing Act of 2025 (ROAD to Housing Act) in committee markup.

The legislation represents a comprehensive federal response to housing challenges, targeting barriers that have made it increasingly difficult for families to achieve homeownership. With housing costs consuming an ever-larger share of family budgets nationwide, the bill offers a multipronged approach to increasing supply, reducing barriers to development, and creating new pathways to homeownership.

The ROAD to Housing Act includes provisions designed to meet America’s diverse housing needs:

Building More Homes and Cutting Red Tape: Helps communities overcome zoning and other barriers, streamlines environmental reviews for housing projects, and creates grants for communities that build more homes.
Opening Doors to Homeownership: Removes barriers that make it harder to get smaller mortgages, improves the home appraisal process, helps families save for homes, and ensures veterans know about their home loan benefits.
Supporting Housing Innovation: Updates rules and financing for manufactured and modular homes and encourages new building technologies that make housing more affordable.
Helping Communities Recover from Disasters: Permanently authorizes disaster recovery efforts to help communities rebuild while incorporating resilience measures to reduce repetitive losses and maintain insurability.

NAR sent a letter of strong support for the bill to Committee Chair Tim Scott and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren. The letter stated, “We commend your leadership in crafting this landmark, comprehensive piece of legislation that addresses the full spectrum of housing needs while prioritizing pathways to homeownership for American families. NAR previously endorsed many of these provisions as standalone measures, and we appreciate this collaborative approach to addressing our nation’s housing challenges.”

“NAR strongly supports this bipartisan legislation that addresses housing supply, affordability, and homeownership pathways,” says Shannon McGahn, executive vice president and chief advocacy officer for NAR. “At a time when homeownership increasingly feels out of reach, this legislation offers meaningful, pragmatic solutions to restore opportunity for millions of American families.”

The bill now moves to the full Senate for consideration. The unanimous committee vote demonstrates bipartisan commitment to addressing America’s housing affordability challenges.

VA Tool Kit Helps Real Estate Professionals Serve Veteran Homebuyers

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has published a Real Estate Professionals VA Home Loan Tool Kit with resources designed to help real estate professionals better serve veteran and active-duty service member homebuyers.

The VA has designed this webpage to ensure real estate professionals have access to educational and promotional materials about the VA home loan in order to inform and support eligible homebuyers as they consider using a VA home loan to purchase a home.

The tool kit aims to address common misconceptions about VA loans and provide real estate professionals with the tools they need to assist veterans effectively. The tool kit includes downloadable resources such as quick reference guides for answering VA loan questions, basic information flyers for prospective homebuyers, eligibility guidelines, and pre-written social media and newsletter content for marketing materials.

The VA Home Loan Guaranty program has helped American veterans secure more than 28 million home loans. In 2023, the VA Home Loan Guaranty provided financing for roughly 400,000 home purchases and refinances. Over half of the 300,000 purchase loans were for first-time buyers.

NAR Commends FHFA Decision to Raise Caps on LIHTC Spending

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has announced that it will raise the caps on how much each government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) can invest in the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) each year, from $1 billion to $2 billion. The GSEs are important investors in LIHTC bonds, which help provide the cash developers need to build and renovate low/moderate income properties.

“We thank Director Pulte and his team for taking action to expand the supply of housing and break down barriers to homeownership. These are important efforts that we have long supported. Doubling the contributions to the development of LIHTC properties provides incentives to investors to support housing development, while the developer gets access to critical capital for construction,” says Shannon McGahn, NAR Executive Vice President and Chief Advocacy Officer. “This is an important step to ease cost burdens in low-and moderate-income areas and we appreciate the Director’s leadership role in this market.”

As always, let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

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