Senior House lawmakers late Wednesday reached a bipartisan deal on housing affordability legislation and scheduled a floor vote for next week.
The final House text would maintain restrictions on Wall Street’s purchase of single-family homes — a priority for President Donald Trump — but would significantly scale back the Senate bill’s limitations on so-called institutional investors in the housing market.
If the House passes its legislation, the bill would have to go back to the Senate for final approval before it reaches Trump’s desk — even as the White House has pushed the lower chamber to pass the Senate’s 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act as-is.
House leadership is aiming to pass the bill under suspension of rules, a fast-track procedure that limits debate, prohibits further amendments on the floor and requires a two-thirds majority. House Financial Services Chair French Hill said earlier on Wednesday that bill text would be posted once an agreement was reached and fully expected the support of ranking member Maxine Waters.
The bill text contains changes to language aimed at limiting the ability of large institutional investors to purchase housing by narrowing the definition of “single-family home,” which could make it possible for private equity firms and other large companies to purchase more homes than the previous version allowed, which is in line with draft text previously reported by POLITICO on Saturday.
The definition of a single-family home would now exclude manufactured housing and homes that have been renovated for sale, among others, according to the text.
The House bill would also strip a controversial Senate provision that would require single-family homes built by large institutional investors as long-term rentals to be sold after seven years to individual homebuyers. The housing industry and affordable housing advocates have opposed the language, arguing that it could disincentivize investment in a large segment of housing stock. There is no requirement for private equity firms to sell single-family homes they currently own or obtain in the future, whether newly built long-term single-family rental homes or otherwise, according to the bill text.
Notably, the House’s amended version of the bill will preserve a five-year ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a digital dollar, which GOP hardliners strongly opposed, arguing that a temporary ban is worse than no ban at all. Members of the House Freedom Caucus previously said they would not vote for the Senate’s housing bill due to the sunsetting ban on a central bank digital currency.
The legislation also contains 12 community banking provisions, which has been a priority of Hill this Congress. The deregulation provisions were excluded from the Senate’s bill and aim to be less burdensome for community banks.
Portions of the Senate’s 21st ROAD to Housing Act that were fully removed include language that would eliminate the cap on the number of properties eligible for HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program; a permanent authorization of the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery program; and the requirement that Federal Housing Administration mortgage disclosures include cost comparison information for veteran homebuyers so they are aware of their Veteran Affairs benefits.
Additionally the House preserved the Build Now Act, which would increase funding through HUD’s CDBG program for communities that build more housing than previously and decrease funding if the housing growth rate is below its previous median rate for that locality. This has been a legislative priority for Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) and was included in Senate crypto bill text released Monday.
