Congress poised to send major housing package to Trump’s desk
by Lindsey McPherson · The Washington TimesCongress will soon send President Trump bipartisan legislation designed to increase housing supply and lower the cost of homeownership — one of the many affordability challenges Americans are facing.
Most of the policies in the bill are not quick fixes, so it will take time before potential buyers see any benefits.
“Limited housing supply and burdensome regulations have contributed to higher prices, and many Americans are simply being priced out of the housing market,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
“So this bill cuts unnecessary red tape that’s delaying construction and driving up prices,” the South Dakota Republican said.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act relies on basic economic principles: Increase supply to lower demand, and price drops will follow.
However, demand is high in only certain segments of the market. New market-rate construction prices are out of reach for most low- and moderate-income families, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
The group’s annual report found that unsold inventories grew in 2025, prompting builders to cut prices and pivot toward more cost-efficient homes and lots.
The bill seeks to help with that issue by removing and streamlining government regulations that have driven up the cost of home construction.
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A National Association of Home Builders study released this month found that regulatory costs account for 26.4% of the final price of a new single-family home — up almost 3 percentage points since the group’s 2021 study.
That equates to $131,734 in regulatory costs for a new home priced at $499,500, the current industry average.
Regulatory costs, along with other factors such as high material costs and elevated interest rates, are factors slowing home construction and creating supply issues.
The U.S. has a structural housing deficit of 1.2 million units, according to NAHB, which supports the legislation moving through Congress.
“The housing shortage in the United States is nothing less than an existential threat to the American dream,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said, adding that the crisis is so dire that it brought both parties together “at a time of such division.”
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The housing package, a compilation of dozens of individual bills, has taken lawmakers years to negotiate and ping-ponged between the House and Senate multiple times this Congress.
Last Tuesday, leaders of the Senate and House panels with jurisdiction over housing policy announced they had finally reached a bipartisan, bicameral compromise ready to be sent to the president’s desk.
“This bill, combining House and Senate priorities, would represent the biggest housing bill in more than 30 years,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, said. “Let’s get it done.”
The Senate will vote on final passage of the bill Monday evening, and the House is expected to follow suit later in the week.
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House Financial Services Chairman French Hill, Arkansas Republican, and ranking member Maxine Waters, California Democrat, resisted pressure to accept multiple Senate-led versions of the bill and fought for key House priorities.
They ultimately convinced senators to include provisions providing regulatory relief to community banks so they can expand home lending opportunities and worked out a key compromise on a top Trump priority.
“Bipartisan, bicameral legislating is never easy — but progress matters,” Mr. Hill said.
Mr. Trump in May urged lawmakers to pass a Senate version of the bill because it included language codifying his executive order banning large Wall Street investment firms from buying up housing supply and taking away opportunities for individual homeownership.
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The bill would ban companies with investment control of 350 or more single-family homes from purchasing additional units.
The Senate bill also would have forced those companies to sell their existing units within seven years, which drew backlash from the NAHB and other industry groups that argued it would destroy the important build-to-rent market.
House leaders were able to get that provision dropped in the final negotiations.
The right-leaning American Enterprise Institute argues the effort from Mr. Trump and Congress targeting large institutional investors is misguided, as they own less than 1% of the nation’s single-family homes and have sold as many rental homes as they acquired in the past two years.
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“Their presence tends to be localized, cyclical, and not a primary driver of home price growth,” AEI scholars Edward J. Pinto and Tobias Peter wrote in an April report. “They contribute positively by adding supply through built-to-rent housing, rehabilitating distressed properties, and serving working families who often are not positioned for homeownership.”
State and local policies also factor into housing costs. The bill offers incentives, rather than mandates, to help address more localized issues.
For example, the measure authorizes a seven-year innovation fund to aid communities in building more housing supply, plus OKs pilot grant programs for regional housing planning and converting vacant and abandoned buildings into housing.
The bill also instructs the Department of Housing and Urban Development to develop zoning and land-use policy best practices that localities can use to help identify and overcome barriers to housing development.
Sen. Tina Smith, Minnesota Democrat, touted provisions she secured in the bill to overhaul the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service program that offers loans and grants to finance affordable housing in rural areas.
The senator said many properties built through the program are dated and in disrepair and current owners can’t keep up with the costs.
The bill makes it easier for nonprofits to take over mortgages and fix up the properties and “simplifies the foreclosure process to save the government money and protect tenants so that properties can be transferred to new owners,” Ms. Smith said.
She said the updates to the Rural Housing Service program will preserve 400,000 apartments and homes in rural communities.
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Lindsey McPherson
lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com
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