Texas BTR Investors Remain Wary of Federal Housing Bill

An earlier version of the 21st Century Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act, a sweeping federal bill intended to improve housing affordability and curb institutional investment in single-family homes, slowed the pipeline of built-to-rent development to a trickle.

According to developers in Texas, the leading state for BTR construction, investors welcome recent revisions to the bill — but not enough to reopen the spigot just yet.

The U.S. Senate received the House’s amendment to HR 6644 last Tuesday and held it at desk, signaling that the bill’s next step is consideration by the full chamber, according to the congressional website. The version that was passed by the Senate in March included a line that would have required large institutional investors to sell built-to-rent homes to individuals within seven years of buying or building them. The House removed this provision from the version it passed last month.

The Senate’s version dissuaded investors from deploying capital to new built-to-rent projects around the country. The effect was especially pronounced in Texas, the only state with multiple cities ranked in the top 10 metros for BTR construction last year. Between June and September 2025, developers had more than 14,000 BTR units under construction between Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and Houston, accounting for nearly half of the 34,000 units in the pipeline across the top 10 metros, according to TRD Data.

Projects stalled by the Senate version of the bill included at least four developments in Texas with a combined $241.4 million of investment behind them, totaling 708 units between North Texas and Austin, according to April survey data provided by advocacy group Inclusive Abundance.

Built-to-rent developers and their investors consider the new version of the bill a step in the right direction, but capital remains mostly frozen, according to Jackson Su, cofounder of Dallas-based BTR developer Bridge Tower.

“Investors are cautiously optimistic but continue to take a wait-and-see approach. I expect that sentiment to persist until the final legislation is approved and signed into law by the White House,” Su said.

Mark Wolf, CEO of San Antonio-based BTR developer AHV Communities, reported a similar sentiment among his investors.

“I’ve got some really good capital that wants to be deployed. And frankly, they’re simply saying that we have to wait until we just get a little more clarity from the Senate to see if this is going to be acceptable or not,” Wolf said.

Wolf considers the amended bill “way better” than the Senate’s version.

“The real goal is to preclude public enterprises from amassing large amounts of single-family rentals. But the purpose built-to-rent communities, things that I do every day, are broadly protected in that,” Wolf said. “And that’s a sigh of relief.”