Finally, something we can all agree on: Housing in America has become prohibitively expensive. And it’s not just because mortgage rates are marching toward the 7% mark once again. Home prices have increased by about 50% since before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index.
While lower mortgage rates would ease the pain of crushing monthly payments, rates aren’t headed lower anytime soon — and the housing crisis can’t be fixed by interest rates alone. The solution should tackle the problem from several angles, from increased housing supply to more homebuyer grant funds and financial education.
Enter the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a wide-reaching statute that has big implications for the future of housing in America. The bill has a level of bipartisan support rarely seen in modern Congress, passing by a 396-13 margin in a House vote on May 20.
This massive legislation enacts many changes, from a ban on institutional investors buying up the nation’s housing stock to relaxed regulations on manufactured housing. Here’s what consumers should know about the bill as it moves through both chambers of Congress and, potentially, to President Donald Trump’s desk.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act: What’s Packed Inside the Bill?
To read and fully comprehend the text of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, you would probably benefit from a law degree. For the average consumer’s purposes, here are a few of the most significant pieces of the legislation:
A Ban on Corporate Investors Buying Single-Family Homes
“Covered large institutional investors,” defined as those that control 350 or more single-family homes, cannot purchase additional single-family homes. Violators face a fine of up to $1 million or three times the property’s price. However, it’s important to note that institutional investors only own about 2% of the single-family rental housing stock nationally, according to the Government Accountability Office. The percentage is much higher in some cities, particularly in the Southeast.
Increased Access to Small-Dollar Mortgages
The bill establishes a four-year pilot program aimed at making Federal Housing Administration loans of less than $100,000 more viable to lenders and borrowers. That includes direct payments from the Department of Housing to lenders to incentivize small-dollar lending.
Establishing a Federal Mandate for Appraisal Disputes
Currently, there’s no standardized process for reconsiderations of value, or ROVs, when an appraisal comes in lower (or higher) than expected. The bill establishes a strict requirement that the major housing agencies must implement. Like many of the bill’s changes, however, this only applies to government-insured mortgages.
Higher Loan Limits on FHA-Insured Mortgages for Multifamily Properties
This measure is designed to promote more building — and thus, increase housing supply — by increasing the amount developers can borrow to construct high-density housing. Before this legislation, the baseline caps on FHA multifamily mortgages hadn’t been updated by Congress since 2003.
Relaxing Regulations on Manufactured Homes
In another effort to boost housing supply, the bill removes a rule requiring manufactured homes to be built on a steel frame known as a “permanent chassis.” By removing the chassis requirement, the bill eliminates a cost barrier and allows for denser vertical construction of manufactured homes — something made possible by improving technology.
Again, this is only a fraction of what’s included in the bill. The Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit think tank founded in 2007 by former Senate majority leaders, offers a comprehensive read into what’s included.
Bipartisan Alliance: How Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren Co-Wrote the Bill
In an attempt to mitigate the housing affordability crisis, the Senate drafted the ROAD to Housing Act. “ROAD” stands for Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream.
The legislation was introduced by Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina in September 2025. The bipartisan bill was co-written by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Scott is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and Warren is a senior member.
At the same time, the House was working on the Housing for the 21st Century Act, introduced in December 2025 by Republican Rep. French Hill of Arkansas and Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California, both of whom serve on the House Financial Services Committee.
The Senate passed the original iteration of the ROAD to Housing Act and sent it to the House, where it spurred negotiations between both chambers of Congress and the White House. This led to a compromise amendment that combined the bills into the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in early March 2026.
The bill lingered until late May as lawmakers worked to revise language that industry trade groups, including the Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Association of Home Builders, said would have prohibited growth in the housing sector. Most notably, the version of the bill that the House passed on May 20 removed language that restricted built-to-rent housing.
With those revisions, the bill now has the support of key players in the housing industry.
“The Senate’s quick passage of this bill and President Trump’s signature will help advance meaningful housing affordability solutions for our nation’s homeowners and renters,” MBA president Bob Broeksmit says in a statement.
“We urge the Senate to move quickly to send a once-in-a-generation housing bill to President Trump to expand housing supply and address America’s housing affordability challenges,” Bill Owens, NAHB chairman and a homebuilder and remodeler from Worthington, Ohio, says in a statement.
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What Happens Next: Will President Trump Sign or Veto the Housing Act?
Although the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act passed by a large margin in the House, it still has a few hurdles before being signed into law. First, the amended text needs Senate approval.
“There’s still work to be done, and we are committed to continuing to work with the White House and our colleagues in the House on a housing bill that can pass the Senate and get to the president’s desk,” Scott and Warren say in a joint statement.
On another important note, the bill’s final section does create a conundrum for actually bringing about some of these changes. The provision states that the bill must be implemented with “no additional funds authorized,” meaning that Congress is not giving the housing agencies money to carry out the bill’s measures, including grants and the administrative costs associated with administering them.
In other words, the government has to find a way to absorb all the costs of the bill using the budgets it already has. The bill does explicitly state that the civil penalties on institutional landlords are to be used to pay for HUD’s assistance grants for first-time homebuyers, but it’s unclear how much revenue these penalties would bring in.
Finally, if the bill passes through Congress, it needs Trump’s signature to become law. It’s likely that he would sign it, given the overwhelming bipartisan support for earlier iterations by the Senate and the current bill by the House.
However, Trump threatened in a Truth Social post to withhold his signature or veto any legislation until Congress passes the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility America Act. But the SAVE America Act is highly unlikely to pass in the Senate, so there’s always the chance that this is another empty threat from the president.
Whatever happens next with the bill, it represents one of the most significant bipartisan efforts to address the housing market in years.
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Banning Wall Street From Buying Houses? Inside the Sweeping Bipartisan Housing Bill Headed to Trump originally appeared on usnews.com
