WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate passed a broad bill on Thursday to make U.S. housing more accessible and affordable, a rare bipartisan effort in Congress to address a growing national problem.
The bill, which passed 89-10, would reduce regulations, regulate corporate investors and expand how housing dollars can be used to build affordable homes and rentals. It will now head back to the House, which passed a similar bill earlier this year.
“There is growing demand for affordable housing in rural communities in Kansas and across the country, underscoring the importance of practical and innovative solutions to help meet that need,” said Sen. Moran. “This legislation will streamline rural housing programs, reduce unnecessary bureaucratic barriers and help expand access to affordable housing for rural families. I urge the House of Representatives to pass this legislation and send it to the President to be signed into law so we can continue to strengthen rural America and improve access to affordable housing.”
“We have a housing shortage all across America,” said Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who worked with Republicans to win overwhelming support from both parties for the legislation. “We need more housing of every kind. More housing for first-time home buyers, more housing for renters, more housing for seniors, more housing for people with disabilities, more rural housing, more urban housing, more, more, and more."
The legislation, she said, "will help drive down prices.”
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., led the effort with Warren. He said ahead of the vote that the Senate would “do what so many people failed to do in this legislative body for the last few decades, and that is pass consequential legislation that makes it easier to become a homeowner.”
Roadblocks ahead for the legislation
Despite the bipartisan vote in the Senate and a shared eagerness to pass the legislation ahead of the midterm elections, It’s unclear whether the House will take up the bill again — or if President Donald Trump will sign it.
Trump has backed the legislation through the bipartisan negotiations, but he has also slowed its momentum with a declaration last weekend that he won’t sign any new measures unless Congress passes legislation that would require voters to show proof of citizenship and end most mail-in balloting. The Senate is expected to begin consideration of that bill next week, but it is unlikely to pass as all Democrats oppose it.
At the same time, House leaders have indicated that they are unlikely to accept the Senate version of the housing legislation and have suggested they could launch a formal conference process to negotiate a final deal between the chambers — a process that could take months.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said ahead of the bill’s passage that conference negotiations are a possibility, “but obviously the quickest way to do this would be to pick up the Senate bill and pass it.”
If the White House wants that to happen, he said, “they’ll probably have to make that argument to House leadership.”
House Financial Services Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., said in a statement that Senate passage is “an important step” but added that, “it is critical we get the details right and mitigate some of the concerns raised by House members with the Senate bill.”
Making housing more attainable
Both Republicans and Democrats have embraced the legislation as there has been a national shortage of home construction and as prices have climbed faster than incomes. The bill would give local governments more power on housing issues, allow banks to invest more in affordable housing and lift limits on the number of public housing units that can receive private financing through Section 8 funding to rehabilitate properties.
“You’ve got many provisions in this bill that stop treating the U.S. like one single housing market and start giving local leaders the tools they need to fix their unique regional puzzle,” said Peter Carroll with Cotality, a company that tracks housing data.
The bill aims to make homebuilding easier by streamlining some regulations that require environmental reviews and inspections. It also lifts a limit on a grant for emergency shelter beds and street homelessness outreach.
As many affordable housing developers are leaning on manufactured and modular homes that can be transported to areas that need housing, the legislation also would eliminate the requirement that they have to be built on a permanent chassis, reducing costs and making them easier to build and design.
Corporate investors
One of the more contested provisions of the bill would bar institutional investors from buying single-family homes — a top priority for Trump.
The bill defines such investors as any that directly or indirectly own 350 or more single-family homes. Investors of any size would not be required to sell single-family homes bought before the date that the bill becomes a law.
They would still be allowed to buy or build single-family homes if they rent them out, but would be required to sell them to an individual homebuyer after seven years.
Trump has pushed the ban as he has been under pressure to address voters’ concerns about affordability ahead of the midterm elections. “People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a social media post in January, calling on Congress to act.
Critics of the bill’s limits on large institutional investors say it will lead to less rental housing inventory and higher rents as landlords face less competition. At the same time, it’s unclear how a ban that targets institutional investors that own 350 or more single-family homes would meaningfully reduce competition that ordinary homebuyers may face when they shop for a home.
A need for reform
The U.S. housing market has been in a slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows.
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes have been hovering close to a 4-million annual pace now going back to 2023 — well short of the 5.2-million annual pace that’s historically been the norm. They slowed last year to a 30-year low and have remained sluggish so far this year, declining in January and February versus a year earlier.
A sharp run-up in home prices, especially in the early years of this decade, and a chronic shortage of homes nationally worsened by years of below-average home construction have left many aspiring homeowners priced out of the market.
Meanwhile, while the median U.S. monthly rent has been declining for more than two years, it was still 15.2% higher in January than it was at the start of 2020, according to data from Realtor.com.
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Kramon reported from Atlanta and Veiga reported from Los Angeles.