The House passed a major bipartisan housing reform bill Monday evening, setting the stage for significant updates to the nation’s housing laws.
The Housing for the 21st Century Act passed by a vote of 390-9 on the full House floor. The bill—a rare bipartisan effort—contains a range of provisions aimed at home affordability, with a similar bill also moving through the Senate.
It comes amid rampant pessimism in the housing market, but signs that some policy change can make homes more attainable.
The median price of a house increased 69% from 1995 to 2024. Realtor.com® economists estimate the nation has a shortfall of about 4 million homes, contributing to rising costs. Even with major structural changes, it would take the better part of a decade to build the needed homes.
Both parties recognize the need to act, Republican Arkansas Rep. French Hill and Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters, the two lead sponsors of the bill, said on the House floor Monday.
“The housing and homelessness crisis has reached a breaking point,” Waters said.
What the bill does
The bill contains about two dozen significant provisions. These aim to speed the cost of home construction and make it easier for Americans to obtain home financing.
The bill “will streamline approvals, and simplify federal and local housing processes to give rural and urban communities the tools they need to build homes faster,” Hill said on the floor.
Some provisions are aimed at directly cutting home construction costs. One is the removal of a 1970s-era requirement that manufactured homes be built on a permanent chassis, even though many never move from their first destination. That reduces the cost of their construction.
Others modernize rules for banks, tailoring regulatory requirements, especially for small banks that are significant sources of home financing. Regulations encourage de novo, or bank startup activity, with the aim of making more local lenders available.
“Without our community banks, without vigorous lending, homes don’t get built,” Hill said.
Still other provisions take aim at state and local regulatory requirements, which are often tedious and widely varied among municipalities. These are responsible for up to a quarter of the construction cost of a home, Hill said.
“This is how Congress is supposed to work,” said Nebraska Rep. Mike Food, a Republican who chairs the housing subcommittee.
About 70 organizations signaled support of the bill including the National Association of Realtors®, the National Association of Home Builders, and several home construction companies.
The path ahead
President Donald Trump has signaled he wants his administration to act to lower housing costs. But the bill must first clear the Senate. The Senate’s version, the ROAD (Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream) to Housing Act, contains more provisions.
Not mentioned was a provision involving a ban on institutional investors buying single-family homes. The Wall Street Journal reports Trump hoped to see that included. He signed his own executive order last month to add scrutiny to those deals.
The Bipartisan Policy Center, a DC nonprofit, broke down the acts’ differences, noting some of the provisions that incur government spending might cause friction between the two chambers.
Still, action is encouraging, said Dennis Shea, the center’s executive vice president.
“The Housing for the 21st Century Act shows the nation’s housing crisis is no longer a silent problem and that lawmakers from both parties are building real momentum behind practical reforms to expand housing supply and improve affordability, even as work continues in the Senate,” Shea said.
