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House Passes 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, Easing Wall Street Landlord Rules

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The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a sweeping housing affordability bill Wednesday, easing a controversial crackdown on Wall Street landlords while keeping new limits on large investors and advancing one of the most significant housing packages in decades. The amended 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act cleared the chamber 396–13 and now heads back to a wary Senate, despite backing from President Donald Trump and major real estate and banking groups nationalmortgageprofessional +1.

The House move kept intact a cap on purchases by “large institutional investors” that own 350 or more single-family homes, but deleted a Senate-passed mandate that would have forced those investors to sell newly built rental houses within seven years or face penalties georgiarecorder +1. The change followed months of lobbying from builders and landlords, and exposed a rift between lawmakers who want to curb corporate ownership and those focused on preserving rental supply.

What Changed in the Crackdown on Big Homebuyers?

The Senate’s March bill would have effectively barred large investors from expanding their single-family portfolios, and required them to offload new build‑to‑rent homes to individual buyers on a seven‑year clock, part of a “homes are for people, not corporations” push aligned with Trump’s earlier calls to ban corporate homebuying georgiarecorder +1. The House version kept the 350‑home ownership threshold and financial penalties for firms that keep buying existing single‑family homes above that limit, but stripped out the forced‑sale rule entirely, giving build‑to‑rent projects a “clean exemption” from disposal requirements cnbc +1.

Industry groups argued the Senate language would have chilled construction and worsened the shortage of affordable rentals, with the National Association of Home Builders estimating it could erase 40,000 to 72,000 build‑to‑rent units a year politico. A coalition of 11 housing organizations said the revised act “is not perfect” but still includes “some of the most significant housing proposals in a generation” realtor. Tenant advocates and some progressive lawmakers countered that softening the rules weakens protections for first‑time buyers in markets where corporate landlords already dominate, and warned that the bill now leans too heavily toward investor interests realestatenews.

A Rare Bipartisan Housing Push, and a Senate Standoff

Beyond investor rules, the bill bundles dozens of measures to accelerate homebuilding: easing environmental reviews, boosting manufactured housing, raising multifamily loan limits and tweaking federal grant programs to speed construction in high‑cost regions insights +1. Both parties framed it as a response to a multi‑million‑home national shortfall and soaring prices. The White House issued a formal statement saying Trump would sign the House‑amended bill, marking a convergence between the administration and House GOP leaders after earlier clashes over how aggressively to curb Wall Street buyers insights +1.

But Senate Banking Committee leaders Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, and Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the Senate is “not ready to pass the amended House bill” and called for more negotiations to reconcile differences, including on missing renter‑protection and disaster‑recovery provisions that the Senate had previously backed nationalmortgageprofessional +1. Because the House rewrote the Senate‑passed measure, senators must now decide whether to accept the changes, demand a conference committee or attempt new amendments, with advocates warning that any delay could push the package into the teeth of the election calendar nationalmortgageprofessional +1.

The Bigger Picture

The House vote underscored broad political pressure to show progress on housing, even as lawmakers remain divided over how hard to squeeze institutional landlords whose share of the nation’s single‑family housing stock remains small overall but heavily concentrated in some metro areas rollcall. Whether the final bill tilts more toward limiting Wall Street’s footprint or maximizing new construction will be decided in the Senate’s next round of talks—along with how quickly any relief reaches renters and would‑be homeowners facing another summer of high prices and scarce listings.