All right, Secretary Turner, thank you for joining us at The Gathering 2026. Thrilled to have you here. Your home state, Texas. Yes, sir. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. It's good to see you again, Clay. It's great to see you too. And I know that our guests, I think we have a little over 900 registered guests down here in Barton Creek. They're pumped to see you. And most of them had lunch in about eight minutes. So they could get back in the room and hear you speak. Well, that's very humbling. And I'm always grateful for people that want to invest the time to come hear what we're doing at HUD. And so when you get an opportunity, please tell everybody I said thank you. I certainly will. I'll be back on the stage tomorrow and I'll make sure that that gratitude is shared. What you have here, an executive audience of mortgage and real estate and home building leaders are people that I believe are just as invested in you as you are in furthering home ownership and helping make housing more efficient, accessible, and hopefully more sustainable. Those of us who have been in the industry for a few cycles, we want to see a housing market that isn't on a cyclical turn every time we turn around. I know a lot of the folks are here hoping to help further that mission by learning and sharing. Absolutely. I feel the same in our team at HUD. We feel the same way. We came into HUD. We said, we're going to return back to the mission-minded focus of HUD. We understand what we've been called to. We understand the mission that we've been called to and the people that we've been called to serve. And you know, as a founder and a leader and a CEO, you have to stay on the mission. You don't want mission drift. And when they talk about housing affordability, there were policies during the Biden administration that really hindered housing affordability, that strained the housing supply, drove cost up, be it from the immigration, from inflation, from mortgage rates. But you can see under President and Trump, we've been laser focused on one security border, make sure that, you know, American homes for American people, bring down interest rates, bring down inflation so we can bring the cost down and raise the supply. And so every day when we talk about the mission, you talk about stability in the mission. Everybody likes stability. And so what we're doing is starting with the deregulation, take down a heavy, burdensome regulatory environment. From the federal standpoint at HUD, we took down the affirmatively furthering fair housing rule, which was a burdensome regulation, a myriad of paperwork that was put on locals, you know, when it came to building communities, zoning communities. And AFFH did not build not one single home. HUD essentially became a national zoning board. And so we tore that down to restore flexibility back to the localities so we can have stability in the community. And so deregulation, the president signing two new executive orders to bring down regulatory environment on construction, new affordable home, and also to increase the competition in the mortgage industry, to bring back the hometown lender, the community bank, which I believe for years, historically, community banks and community lenders, they really provided stability in the community, and particularly for first-time homebuyers and low to moderate income. You know, it's funny you say that. Like when this industry over the last decade has talked a lot about digital mortgages, and everyone thought the first-time millennial homebuyer was going to be the one who rushed to do their transaction fully online. And we've seen that first time home buyers are often the ones who want their in-person advice. They want to sit down across the desk from somebody a loan originator and a great qualified agent to walk them through that super important financial decision So what we heard in the industry what we seen in data what we seen in surveys rhymes with exactly your point of the importance of the hometown lender And you know I know like for me at this stage and I may be a little old school and I do love technology and AI. We're using it at HUD to streamline our processes. Our project HUGS, which is being ran by our CFO there, Irv Dennis and his team, you know, it's in particular for the sub-recipient level to attack waste, fraud, and abuse. So technology is awesome, the AI. But that human touch sometime, in particular when you're a first-time home buyer and you don't understand all the paperwork and the people at the mortgage company and the title company walk you through it. You know, there's an endearing feeling there that somebody's walking you through the greatest investment that you've ever made. And so I think the hybrid of new technology and the endearing spirit, if you will, of the human guidance and touch, I think is something that we cannot lose. So can I tell you what I most recently used AI for? Yes. So I mentioned on stage that we had two former NFL players on the stage earlier this morning. So the last thing I asked my AI assistant was, did Scott Turner, Tehran Armstead, and Drew Bledsoe ever cross paths on the field? They instantly ruled out Tehran. Did you and Drew ever match up? Yes. You did. I think when Drew was in New England because our careers overlapped. When he was in New England, we played New England and the game that we played them, Tom Brady had already become the quarterback. So our careers overlapped, but unfortunately I had to face Brady on that day. He joked on stage that Brady didn't know he was supposed to be there as a backup. He didn't come back. Yeah, he was a six-round draft pick out of Michigan that couldn't run to save his life. But he has a very unique mindset and perspective, obviously, you know, seven Super Bowls later and 21 years in the NFL. Well, sorry for keep going back to football. A lot of important housing topics to discuss. Maybe it's, you know, it's this audience of entrepreneurs and competitive people. Definitely see the correlation and overlap between the competition we learn on the field. I'm getting that right now as I coach my four-year-old son's basketball team. I'm trying to relive my glory days. That's a lot of competition. Who's going to go the right way? And do I not hit my head on the six-foot hoop? I can't wait until they go up to the eight-foot hoop and I'll save myself a few bruises. Are they shooting on the correct basket? That's part of the job. Part of the reason the coaches are on the court during these games, it's literally steering them in the right direction. But they're learning. That's sweet. Kindergarten will be a big stage up. All right, bringing it back to housing. On stage, you announced a pretty big deregulatory regulatory announcement. Share that news with our podcast listeners. So a 2024 final determination was issued under President Biden, and it rendered that all new home construction for FHA and USDA-backed mortgages was ineligible unless they adhered to this International Energy Conservation Code, the IECC. And so this in and of itself, we talk about deregulation, we talk about bureaucratic, you know, burdensome, heavy-handed regulations. This was a prime example of that. Builders were building two energy codes already. And so this was, you know, more paperwork, more reviews of construction. It was a greater look at the wiring, a greater look at the insulation, which builders and developers are already doing And so we have rescinded this final determination to restore this flexibility and restore this control back to builders and developers around our country And a great example of this Clay is in Kansas City Missouri when they adopted this the IECC I think it was in 2023 For the first three months there were no new home starts. There was a 22% decrease in permits pool for new construction. There was 78% reduction in the number of builders that were in Kansas City. So you think about that in the market where we need affordable housing, we need workforce housing, and you have a reduction in the permits pool. You have no new home starts for the first three months. And then 78% of the builders leave the community. And so we're very excited to make this announcement so that the industry can build and buyers can buy. You can't understate the importance of new inventory coming into our supply. We sit on a relatively aged housing stock in the US. And whenever a builder pulls out of the market, you know, it might send a negative signal, but what it does to home prices is it pushes the floor up underneath existing inventory because that existing inventory becomes that much more competitive. So even in markets where new home construction might only make up single digit percentages of annual sales, you pull out that supply lever and it just messes up the whole dynamic for existing and first time home buyers who are hunting for often that entry level product that home builder has been really good at bringing to market. That's right. You know, But we, you know, in particular for Gen Z and millennials. I'm glad we're talking about Gen Z now. I'm an elder millennial and I'm tired. We own houses now. There you go. You're in a good spot. But you think about that. Part of my mindset and heart attitude for myself and my team is that we want the younger generation, Gen Z, millennials to be hopeful that they can own a home. to be hopeful that as they are faithful stewards, that they could start a family owner home and achieve the American dream of home ownership and start to create financial stability and security for them and their families. And that drives us every day. It encourages us. It challenges us. The president, he's of the same mindset, laser focus on making housing more affordable. And so I think with this announcement, with deregulation, with our FHA and Jenny May programs at HUD, I think we're off to a great start. Yeah. So I want to come back as we wrap up the conversation to a leadership question. So this is coming to you from me as CEO of HousingWire to you as Secretary of HUD. As CEO, I'm flooded with ideas. I have my own ideas running all the time. I got clients that have asked. I got employees and team members that have fabulous ideas, investors, other folks in the industry. Prioritization becomes just such a big priority. You talked about stability earlier. You can't lead a stable organization if you don't have clear priorities. How do you prioritize everything that's hitting your plate as HUD secretary? I'm sure you have, you know, stakeholders inside of the administration. You have U.S. taxpayers. You have industry where you have interactions with. Like, how do you prioritize what matters to you in your role? Well, I think it goes back to the mission. You know, what is your mission? And our mission at HUD is to provide safe, sustainable, quality, affordable housing, and to help more people in America to achieve the American dream. If that's our mission, then how does the work that we do every day fit into that mission? And if it does not, then it's not a priority. You know, how do we help our homeless neighbors around America to not only receive housing, but to get treatment for the root of their homelessness and then to be transformed and then to live a life of self sustainability If the work and the ideas that are coming in do not line up with that mission of our homelessness initiatives it not a priority In disaster recovery the same And so what I would say is that every day we have to remind ourselves, what's the mission? Are the ideas that are coming? Do they help us to accomplish the mission? And if they don't, then they're not a priority. When I was in the NFL playing on defense, I was a defensive back. Every single defensive coordinator I had, every single week said, what is our number one priority? Stop the run. Now, mind you, you're playing against Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, you know, so sometimes like we're calling it. That's a harder ask than it sounds. But it was the mission. It was the priority. And so every defense that was called, every play that was ran on defense was number one, stop the run. Because if you stop the run, then you can open up the playbook and be more aggressive on the pass. And so that would be my advice. I mean, that's a great example. It says you're stuck in a position where you're always playing defense. You never get to play offense and get anything done. I mean, I feel like this industry of mortgage and real estate leaders and, you know, someone who serves the industry, man, when rates started shooting up in 2023, it put us all on our heels. We all went defensive. And there's very few people who were prepared with the cash, the balance sheet, the mindset, the strategy to go into an offensive stance, which is the only way you ever win. That's it. You have to be on attack mode. You know, the greatest defenses in football are the ones that take it to the offense, not the ones that receive and try to defend, but the ones that move the line of scrimmage the other way and then dare you to come across the middle. Right. And so I think it's the same in industry. Not that we would have that type of violent mindset. I'm not saying that, but we have a mindset that says we're going to attack the problem. Well, I mean, if you're going to further the analogy, like moving the line of play, I mean, that's making housing more affordable. That's it. That's having the right product in market. That's having a, hopefully, now this is not all in your control, but hopefully having the jobs and the income to support people to buy inventory at the price that it's at. It's a stable, it's a healthy economy. It takes all of us working together, policy and public-private partnership and approach. That's right. And you said it, it's an all-hands-on-debt approach. And at HUD, you know, we're really blessed that we have a team that is very proactive. We understand the mission. We do a great job of listening to industry. We understand the issues and the problems that face us as it pertains to housing, homelessness, disaster recovery, but for the sake of our conversation for housing affordability. And so we have a team at HUD that is very creative and innovative, not just to receive the ideas and respond, but to get ahead of it and say, well, here's our mission. here's the problem, let's try this, as it is appropriate, according to who we are. And I think because of that, that we've been able to accomplish a lot. Well, you have a fabulous team that's focused on the mission and the vision. Secretary Turner, thank you for joining us at the gathering. For our audience, our listeners, I can assure you that there's going to be updates on this, update to the IECC and this deregulatory action on the pages of Housing Wire. Hopefully you got a breaking news alert by the time this podcast hits. I can't thank you enough for giving us your time, your energy, your service. I'm honored to be here. That's a wrap. Thank you, brother. Thanks for listening to Housing Wire Daily. If you haven't already, we'd love for you to take a minute to rate the show and leave a comment. And make sure to tune in tomorrow for more news and insight.
