The United States Senate today passed legislation now called the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a comprehensive, bipartisan legislative package designed to increase housing supply and access. The bill will now have to be sent back to the House, where it must face reconciliation and another vote before going to President Donald Trump’s desk.
The bill passed on an 89-10 vote, with nine Republicans and Democratic Senator Brian Schatz (HI) voting no. Schatz had recently expressed criticism about the scope of the provisions of the bill limiting institutional investors’ ownership of single-family homes.
“We are now targeting LLCs, limited partnerships, real estate investment trusts, individual owners, family companies, pension funds, anyone who wants to build housing and then provide it for rent is going to be forced to sell after seven years,” said Schatz, echoing some criticisms from those in sectors of the real estate industry.
The most recent version of the bill has received a mixed reaction from industry advocates, though the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) lauded the vote and urged the House to pass it on to Trump for a signature.
“It has been nearly two decades since Congress last enacted a sweeping, bipartisan housing law. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 was the last major federal effort to address housing challenges at scale. Today’s affordability crisis demands that same level of national focus,” NAR said.
Bill substance
Despite bipartisan support for addressing housing, the bill’s future is not assured, with reports that at least some House Republicans are displeased with the differences between the version they passed and the Senate version.
Addressing an extremely broad swath of policy priorities, the bill contains everything from direct financial support for homeowners and local governments, to requirements that certain housing agency heads testify annually before Congress, to reducing environmental reviews on certain projects.
This legislation has seen a back and forth pull between the House and the Senate up to this vote. In summer 2025, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs approved a bipartisan package, the Road to Housing Act. This bill stalled out in the House, with the congressional body putting forth its own housing package, the Housing for the 21st Century Act that passed the House in February 2026 on a vote of 390-9 in favor of.
The Housing for the 21st Century Act, which shared most (but not all) of the same provisions as the Road to Housing Act, was sent to the Senate for a vote. The Senate subsequently amended the text of the bill to the text of their own Road to Housing Act; the new name for the legislation, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, suggests a conscious effort to combine the two packages into one.
Two new sections added to the legislation that were not part of the House version address hot-button housing and financial issues. For one, the bill directly bans large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, though this ban would sunset after 15 years. It also does not ban such investors from purchasing multifamily homes or manufactured homes.
Under the legislation, a “large institutional investor” is defined as a for-profit entity, such as a corporation or investing fund that is “in the business of investing in, owning, renting, managing or holding single-family homes” and which has investment control over 350 or more single-family homes.
The bill does not require institutional investors to divest from or sell off single-family homes that they already own. This provision echoes calls by President Trump since January 2026 to ban large investors from owning single-family homes; later that month, Trump issued an executive order calling on Congress to act on the issue.
Additionally, another new section would explicitly ban the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency, or a cryptocurrency which is backed by the Fed and widely available to the general public. The ban would sunset after 2030.
Industry response
Shortly after the vote, NAR released a statement praising the bill’s passage and its bipartisan approach to addressing the housing issues facing America such as a shortage of 5 million homes and the rising median age of first-time homebuyers.
“The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act takes important steps to close the nation’s housing supply gap and make homes more affordable. The bill gives communities new tools and resources to build more homes, streamlines federal processes that delay construction and updates financing options for manufactured and rural housing. The bill also modernizes federal programs to expand homeownership opportunities, takes steps to improve access to credit and strengthens awareness of VA home loan benefits.”
NAR concluded with a call for the House to “swiftly” pass the bill and for Trump to sign it.
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) took a more cautious stance in a public statement by MBA President Bob Broeksmit.
“While the bill that passed today includes many positive provisions to boost housing supply, streamline federal housing programs, expand access to small-dollar mortgage lending, advance manufactured and modular housing and improve the efficiency of our nation’s housing finance system, MBA and its members have significant concerns with several parts of the bill,” said Broeksmit.
Specifically cited issues include the bill’s restrictions on institutional investors which would “further limit financing for build-for- and built-to-rent housing communities,” Broeksmit claimed.
“For these reasons, MBA urges Senate leaders and the Trump administration to work with the House to address these provisions before the legislation moves any further. The goal should be clear: a final package that puts the country on a path to increased affordability, lower operational costs, less red tape and more housing, not less,” Broeksmit concluded.
Bill Owens, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), also criticized the provisions affecting institutional investors in a public statement.
“While the Senate-passed housing package includes several favorable provisions that would streamline environmental reviews, encourage land use and zoning reforms, and improve our aging housing stock, we are very concerned about a provision that could significantly curtail housing supply,” Owens said. “Specifically, the provision requiring institutional investors to sell built-for-rent single-family homes within seven years would severely reduce investment in rental housing and could slash single-family production by nearly 40,000 units per year.”
Owens called for this provision to be removed from the bill as the House and Senate move to conference to reconcile the two pieces of legislation.
“NAHB will continue to work with House and Senate lawmakers to pass a final housing package that includes the best elements of both chambers’ bills and truly reflects Congress and President Trump’s stated purpose of increasing the nation’s housing supply,” Owens concluded.
