The New Mexico Housing Strategy

The New Mexico Housing Strategy leads the state, local governments, and private and nonprofit partners toward the highest impact actions to address challenges in housing opportunities and stability.  

• Access the 2026 New Mexico Housing Strategy
• Access the 2022 New Mexico Housing Strategy

Background 

In 2022, the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority (Housing New Mexico | MFA) engaged Root Policy Research to develop the New Mexico Housing Strategy—the state’s first comprehensive roadmap to advancing housing opportunity and stability. The strategy combines robust quantitative analysis with extensive community input, including more than 20 focus groups and a statewide resident survey with 1,300 responses. An advisory committee representing developers, local governments, public housing agencies, and homelessness service providers guided the process and identified high-impact action areas and goals to address key challenges:  

• Produce housing across the income continuum 
  • Goal: Increase housing production across the housing continuum.  
  • Goal: Create flexibility within state and local programs and policies to respond to housing needs and market fluctuations.    
• Preserve and improve existing affordable housing, both privately and publicly owned, and redeveloping underutilized and vacant properties to increase supply and catalyze economic development 
  • Goal: Catalyze the potential of underutilized properties to be redeveloped into new housing.    
  • Goal: Preserve existing naturally occurring affordable housing and publicly subsidized housing stock.  
  • Goal: Build assurance among property owners and property managers of the economic feasibility of housing formerly homeless and special needs residents, thereby stabilizing housing for low income renters.    
• Build homeownership opportunities to retain the state’s high homeownership rate, especially among low and moderate-income, and racially and ethnically diverse, households 
  • Goal: Create flexibility within state programs and policies to respond to housing needs and market fluctuations.    
  • Goal: Ensure that manufactured homes continue to be a housing solution for homeowners and renters.    
• Create housing stability for people vulnerable to and experiencing homelessness and residents with special housing needs 
  • Goal: Expand successful housing+services models tailored to local needs.  
  • Goal: Strengthen supportive service programs that foster housing stability.  
  • Goal: Strengthen support for emergency homelessness interventions.  

2026 Update. 

2026 update to the New Mexico Housing Strategy provides current data on population trends, projected and current housing needs, market trends, and incorporates research on best practices to promote housing production. The refreshed data and analysis affirm the action areas and goals, show that New Mexico is effectively making progress to increase housing opportunities and stability for New Mexicans, and provide direction as it continues to tackle the challenge.