March 12, 2026
One of the largest affordable housing bills in years just passed in the United States Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. But even with all these Senators on board – its very unclear whether this particular bill is ever going to become law. I’ll tell you why that is in a second…but first.
The bill that passed today is called the 21 Century Road to Housing Act. It is massive and would do lots of different things including –incentivizing more home building, cutting red tape, increasing the supply of manufactured homes – which are typically cheaper and faster to build — and perhaps most importantly – it would prohibit large institutional investors from purchasing certain single-family homes in theory — to make it easier for actual people to buy those homes….but it might not go as far as you think…more on that in a second
So today this bill and all those provisions I just talked about passed in the Senate 89 to 10 with one Senator not voting. 9 of the 10 no votes came from Republicans one was a Democrat and the one Senator that did not vote was a Republican.
Ok – so if this bill is so great and all these senators are on board, and President Trump signed an executive order recently about accomplishing most of the things in this bill and… the vast majority of Americans want to see big investors stop buying up single family homes — why won’t this bill get through the house?
Because the House recently passed its own bill and that one – which is sponsored by a Republican says nothing about these big investors. The House’s bill is called the housing for the 21st Century Act. It also passed with wide bipartisan support – the final vote there was 390 to 9 with 33 members not voting. 8 of the no votes were from Republicans and 1 was from a Democrat.
Ok – so now that both the House and Senate passed two different versions of the same bill – both with overwhelming bipartisan support – they will have to go to conference to iron out the differences. And here’s the main sticking point – a group of House Republicans say blocking these big investors from buying these single family homes is anti-capitalist and they won’t vote for it.
Now – it’s important for you to understand exactly what the Senate bill actually says about these big investors and what they can and can’t do. The Senate bill defines “large institutional investor” as an entity that controls either directly or indirectly at least 350 single family homes at the time the bill is signed into law. Now the senate version does not force these large investors to sell the properties they currently own – it just would limit the way they can purchase any new properties in the future. The bill then puts rules in place for the types of homes large investors can still purchase after the bill is signed into law. The bill says these large institution investors *can* still buy single family homes *if* they are new construction, renovated homes or rental conversions that are intended for sale. They can buy single family homes if they provide a path to ownership for the renters. They can purchase single family homes if they are part of development that was always intended as a rental community. And they can still buy single family homes that are in foreclosure, or repossession or have mortgage servicing obligations. However – in some – not all but some of these cases – the investor must sell the property to an individual after 7 years.
So now – the House and Senate negotiators will come up with a compromise and it’s unclear how this is going to shake out in the end or what if anything is going to get to the president’s desk. But here’s what we do know for sure – the longer this conference drags out and the closer we get to the midterm elections the less likely it is that anything is going to become law.
See how your Senator voted here.
See how your Representative voted here.
Read the Senate bill here.
Read the House bill here.
