In a rare bipartisan effort, one of the most momentous housing bills in decades has become law.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act was officially authorized at midnight on July 11 following months of back-and-forth between the Senate and the House, and after the president refused to sign it at the last moment in June. The new law aims to expand housing supply, trim regulations, limit major institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes and, ultimately, lower housing costs.
This is the most important housing legislation since 1974, when Congress approved Section 8 and Community Development Block Grants, Rep. Josh Harder (D-CA), who has been heavily involved in championing the bill, told Multifamily Dive.
“It's been a long time since then, and it is desperately needed. I think it's going to do a tremendous amount of good,” Harder said.
Although he had previously signaled support, President Donald Trump abruptly canceled the signing ceremony scheduled for June 24, saying he would not approve the bill until an unrelated voter ID law, the SAVE America Act, was passed. Since Trump neither signed nor vetoed the housing bill, it automatically became law 10 days, excluding Sundays, after it was enrolled.
Both parties had been eager to pass the legislation ahead of midterm elections. Despite some key differences between the two chambers’ versions, the House passed the measure by a 358-32 vote on June 23, following an 85-5 Senate approval on June 22.
The housing industry has also been enthusiastic about the effort. On June 23, a coalition of 227 pro-housing organizations sent a letter thanking members of congress for their work on the legislation: “This is the bill the pro-housing community hoped for and fought for. It is the best initial federal action we could have asked for to maximize housing supply.”
National Housing Law Project CEO Shamus Roller told Multifamily Dive the measure should help get more homes built and make housing programs more functional. However, Roller said more needs to be done to address affordability, particularly for those most in need.
“This bill is no silver bullet, right? It's not going to dramatically change what the housing market looks like for most people around the country,” Roller said. “Structural challenges remain and aren't really addressed by the bill.”
Nonetheless, Hugh Frater, chairman of the board at a mission-driven real estate firm Vessel Technologies and board member at the Bipartisan Policy Center, thinks the law is a major step in the right direction.
“There's a clear theme [in the legislation], which is a recognition that we have not been producing enough housing, and there are things that we can and should do to try and change that,” Frater said. “Much of the housing challenge needs to get resolved at the state and local level, rather than the federal level, but I think this is a terrific recognition of some of the things that the federal government can actually do to make it possible to produce more housing.”
Bipartisan effort
The legislation demonstrates what's possible when Congress works together, according to Dennis Shea, executive vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy. The organization has been advocating for many key measures reflected in the legislation.
"This bill becoming law is a genuine milestone—and I don't use that word lightly. Getting Congress to move on housing supply and affordability has been a long time coming,” Shea said in a statement. “But this moment calls for urgency as much as celebration. The hard work of implementation starts now, and there are still many issues to be tackled.”
A generation of young people is living on their parents' sofas because they can't afford a home of their own, Harder said, and the fact that this housing legislation is the only major new bill that is likely to pass this entire Congress suggests that it is something Americans are demanding.
“This is a time when Congress is notoriously polarized and unproductive, and so getting something like this done, I think it's a huge, huge statement that we can still do important work,” Harder said.
Harder is the founder of the bipartisan Build America Caucus, which he said originated almost all of the ideas that ended up in the final package. The group believes it has become too difficult to build infrastructure and housing projects in the U.S.
“We have been really shepherding it through every step of the way, especially when the Senate added the build-to-rent ban and some of the institutional investor provisions. We got heavily involved and led a bipartisan letter that 76 members ended up joining,” Harder said. “Ultimately we were successful in removing the most harmful pieces of that provision.”
That measure, added by the Senate, would have forced institutional investors to sell build-to-rent single-family homes within seven years. The housing industry sounded the alarm, saying it would effectively eliminate the production of BTR housing and lead to higher rent and home prices. Although it was a major sticking point, the two chambers reached an agreement to exempt BTR in the final version of the legislation.
“There's been a lot of other sets of challenges and questions that we've had to resolve around what actually gets included, but by far, I think the biggest fight has been trying to make sure that something important and ambitious can even happen in this political environment,” Harder said.
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