June 16, 2026
The House and Senate have agreed today that homes are for people, not corporations.
And that means if all goes according to plan, we’re actually going to see one of the largest affordable housing bills get passed into law in the next few weeks.
And yes, this is the bill that would limit how many single-family homes large investors can buy up.
The bill is called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act.
I actually told you this was coming back in March when the Senate originally passed this bill. The House passed its own version of the bill and after months of negotiations, both chambers today have reached this final version.
I’m going to talk about what comes next in a second, but first let’s talk about what provisions made the cut into this compromise bill.
You should know it’s more than 380 pages. There’s a lot in it.
It incentivizes more home building, cuts red tape, increases the supply of manufactured homes — which are typically cheaper and faster to build — and even identifies federal land that could be leased to private companies to build more homes.
Perhaps most importantly is the section literally called “Homes Are for People, Not Corporations.”
This section of the bill prohibits large institutional investors from purchasing certain single-family homes, which would, in theory, make it easier for actual people to buy those homes.
While that might sound great, there’s a catch.
This bill will not stop any investor from owning 100 single-family homes. It won’t stop an investor from owning 200 single-family homes or even 300 single-family homes.
This bill defines large institutional investors as a person or entity that owns 350 or more single-family homes.
So if you own 349 single-family homes, you’re good. But if you buy one more, then you’d be subject to all these new restrictions.
Now, those who support this bill say it’s really meant to stop Wall Street-scale investors from buying up single-family homes. But those who are opposed say that 350 number is arbitrary and that’s still a lot of homes that investors are snatching up.
But in the end, that’s the number Congress came up with, so that’s what they’re going with.
Now, importantly, the bill says large institutional investors do not have to sell the properties they currently own. Those will be grandfathered in. They can keep them.
This bill, once it’s signed into law, would just limit the way they can purchase any new properties in the future.
And yes, even if they own 350 single-family homes, they still can purchase more.
The bill says large investors can still buy single-family homes if they are new construction, if they purchase distressed homes and then renovate them, if they purchase single-family homes that are part of a development that was always intended as a rental community, or if they’re single-family homes in a 55-and-older community.
Now, if these investors break these rules and the government finds out about it, there are stiff penalties.
The bill says the Treasury Department and Attorney General can impose a civil penalty of up to $1 million per violation or a fine of three times the purchase price of the property involved, whichever is greater.
The bill says all of these rules will go away 15 years after this bill takes effect unless Congress decides to continue them.
Now, there was one rule that the Senate really wanted to keep in, but the House said no, so it was stripped out.
The Senate wanted to allow these large investors to buy single-family homes that are in foreclosure, repossession, or have mortgage servicing obligations, but then the investor would have to sell that property to an individual after seven years.
That didn’t make it into the final version of the bill.
So what’s next?
Well, Senate leadership is expecting to put this bill on the floor for a vote sometime before Thursday of this week, and then the House could take it up when they return from their recess next week.
President Trump has already said he’s supportive of this, so if Congress passes it, we could see him sign it into law by the end of this month.
Read the bill text here.
