FHFA Delays New Housing Provider Requirements
Issue Date: February 27, 2025
On February 24, as part of a coalition of housing-provider and real estate industry groups, NAR sent a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), asking the regulators to delay implementation of several national policies and standards for rental housing providers. These policy changes, proposed by the Biden Administration, were intended to go into effect on February 28 on multifamily rental properties financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They are: 1) a mandatory 30-day written notice of a rent increase; 2) a 30-day written notice of a lease expiration; and 3) a 5-day grace period for late fees due to nonpayment of rent. On February 27, the coalition received word from the FHFA that they will be delaying implementation of these changes until May 31, 2025 so they can review them and determine if they fit within the new Administration’s agenda.
Rental housing policy is the purview of the states, and this includes regulations for evictions, rent increases, and grace periods – some of which are longer than the FHFA’s proposed standards. Housing providers create their leases based on their localities’ requirements and in many cases must navigate a patchwork of regulations across jurisdictions. On top of creating an additional layer of confusion to those regulatory regimes, the FHFA directive would require millions of existing leases to be updated, and would be an unacceptable intrusion by the federal government into a policy area controlled by the states. NAR continues to prioritize and advocate for national policies that will increase the amount of housing in the country and thus reduce strains on the rental housing market.