BY THE NUMBERS: As the National Flood Insurance Program Remains Expired, Each Holiday Will Mark Another Wave of Canceled Home Closings and Families Left Without Coverage in Peak Storm Season
By New Year's Day, 130K+ Home Sales Could be Derailed by Trump's Flood Insurance Shutdown
WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Sabotaging Our Safety sounds the alarm about how the Trump administration's government shutdown has triggered a mounting real estate crisis and warns that it could further devastate American homebuyers through the holiday season and during peak storm season.
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) remains expired as President Trump and the Republican-controlled House and Senate continue to prioritize their health care cuts over essential disaster coverage. Millions of Americans are now unable to purchase or renew flood insurance, with thousands of policies expiring each day that Congress fails to act. The ongoing lapse represents a catastrophic failure of leadership by Trump and his congressional allies that is actively stripping away the primary flood insurance safety net as existing policies expire and cannot be renewed.
Prior to the shutdown, Sabotaging Our Safety warned Texas, Louisiana, and Florida governors to demand that the Trump administration and Congress protect homeowners’ flood insurance. The governors, members, and Trump ignored those calls.
During the last NFIP lapse in June 2010, an estimated 1,400 home sale closings were canceled or delayed each day, totaling more than 40,000 delayed transactions each month because required flood insurance policies couldn’t be issued.
If history repeats itself, here’s how the shutdown threatens holiday home sales:
🎃Halloween – October 31, 2025
31 days into the shutdown: An estimated 43,400 home closings canceled or delayed. That’s more ghosted contracts than trick-or-treaters on your street.
🦃Thanksgiving – November 27, 2025
58 days into the shutdown: Nearly 81,200 stalled transactions, leaving families with no home to gather around the dinner table.
🎆New Year’s Day – January 1, 2026
93 days into the shutdown: About 130,200 delayed closings, starting the new year with more uncertainty than resolutions.
This expiration adds to Trump’s systematic dismantling of America’s disaster preparedness infrastructure. It follows his administration’s proposed cuts to FEMA funding, staffing reductions, rollback of climate resilience initiatives and extreme weather forecasting, and workforce reductions across the federal government. While existing policyholders retain current coverage, the nearly 5 million Americans who depend on NFIP cannot renew expiring policies, and new homeowners remain completely shut out from obtaining flood insurance.
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