By Shaina Mishkin

Housing industry's stocks were headed higher after President Donald Trump's speech in Davos delivered few surprises in terms of housing policy.

The Davos address was awaited by investors. The president posted on social media earlier this month that he would discuss his proposed ban on institutional investors buying single-family homes, along with "further Housing and Affordability proposals" at the World Economic Forum.

But the speech was most memorable for what it didn't include. Those bracing for a government move to target builders, whether by preventing stock buybacks or taking other measures to encourage the companies to build more homes than they would otherwise, were relieved.

The iShares U.S. Home Construction exchange-traded fund was up 2.2% in afternoon trading, snapping a two-day losing streak and on pace for its largest increase since Jan. 9, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Shares of D.R. Horton, the nation's largest public home builder, were up 2.8%. Lennar and PulteGroup, two other large builders, were up 2.4% and 1.9%, respectively.

The contents of the president's housing market comments largely centered on measures to restrict purchases of single-family homes by big institutional investors and other already-announced goals, such as a cap on credit-card fees. Trump also assured homeowners that the government doesn't want to make homes more affordable by tanking home prices, Barron's previously reported .

"There really wasn't anything that we didn't already know" in the Davos address, Ivy Zelman, executive vice president of a Walker & Dunlop housing research firm, said on a Wednesday webinar.

"We thought there was going to be this big program announced to really drive more new construction to the housing market," she added. "I'm not sure that still won't happen, but it didn't get announced today."

The housing policy pendulum has swung from favoring actions to reduce housing costs by spurring supply to those favoring demand, says Rick Palacios, Jr., the director of research at John Burns Research and Consulting.

Too much buyer demand without enough supply risks driving home prices higher. But right now "there's enough slack in the market" to tolerate more home-buyers, Palacios says.

"Over the more medium, long term, you do need to have some mechanisms, some levers, to push and pull that will allow more supply to come into the system," he says. "Right now the focus on is on: How can we get demand going again?"

Write to Shaina Mishkin at shaina.mishkin@dowjones.com

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January 21, 2026 15:52 ET (20:52 GMT)

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