Housing Bill Bounces Back to House After Senate Passage

The long and winding road to passing the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act may finally be at an end.

On Monday, the Senate voted 85-5 in favor of the housing affordability bill, NBC News reported. Several votes were left on the table after severe storms forced a ground stop at the airport, preventing senators from making it on time.

There are numerous provisions in the bill, which is expected to be voted on by the House later this week.

Critically, the bill includes a ban on large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes. That provision was one of the more contentious debates in the legislation, but has been championed by Donald Trump since the start of the year.

The act doesn’t include a provision requiring build-to-rent investors to sell rental homes within seven years, a feared mandate that froze activity and scared away investment in the sector. The House lopped off that provision during deliberations over the bill last month.

Other features of the bill, according to The Hill, include programs to assist communities in finding housing opportunities, grants and loans for those seeking to rebuild aging properties and an expanded definition of manufactured housing, which could help developers bypass local zoning issues.

Notable aspects also include linking federal grants to housing construction on the local level and streamlining environmental reviews.

A housing affordability measure has been bandied about the halls of Congress for several months, facing multiple stops and starts. The Senate passed one version of legislation in March, but the House passed a different version in May, requiring weeks of reconciliation between the two legislative bodies.

Assuming the House passes the bill, it will be up to Trump to put his signature on it.

After it passed the Senate, a spokesperson for the administration said it was “proud to have worked alongside our partners in Congress to move this legislation forward that advances the President’s housing affordability agenda.”

— Holden Walter-Warner