News of the Day June 24, 2026
Congress Passes Largest Housing Affordability Bill in Decades

If there’s room for agreement on anything in Washington, it’s that lawmakers need to do something to make homeownership more affordable. On Tuesday, legislators on both sides of the aisle clinched the final vote in the House to pass the largest piece of housing legislation in decades.

The bill, called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, passed 358-32 in the House. The Senate approved it Monday with similarly overwhelming bipartisan support. It now heads to President Trump’s desk for his signature.

Rather than making a single change, the bill is a hodgepodge of provisions designed to either encourage housing construction or make it easier for home seekers to buy. The flashiest part of the package is a ban that prevents corporate investors from buying up more single-family homes to rent out. If one of those groups already owns at least 350 houses, it won’t be able to buy others.

While the legislation doesn’t provide new federal dollars for homebuilding, it streamlines some of the regulations homebuilders must follow to get existing federal financing.

For example, it allows builders to skip the environmental review when a housing project is going up between two buildings that have already gone through the process.

A different provision creates a grant program for communities to develop “pattern books” of preapproved housing designs, so builders won’t need as many approvals to get up to code.

Another is aimed at making manufactured homes more affordable by getting rid of the rule that those houses must have a permanent chassis, or a steel frame that makes them movable. Manufactured homes are often installed onto permanent foundations, and housing policy experts say that removing the chassis requirement could cut $5,000 to $10,000 off construction costs and allow for designs that could more easily incorporate a second story or basement.

The bill also encourages local governments to speed up the homebuilding process by giving more federal dollars to places that build more housing.