The 21st Century Road to Housing Act became law without Trump’s signature.
It’s become rare to see major bipartisan policy legislation coming out of Congress these days, but on July 10, an exception made it into law. The 21st Century Road to Housing Act will cap big investors from buying more single-family homes. It will also promote local approval of pre-reviewed housing designs to streamline affordable housing construction. And it will eliminate a requirement that manufactured homes have a permanent chassis and thus be movable.
Versions of the bill passed the House 390-9 on Feb. 9 and the Senate 89-10 on March 12, and then each re-passed a uniform version of the bill June 22 and 23. President Donald Trump in his Feb. 24, 2026, State of the Union address had called for a ban on large investors buying homes. He was scheduled to sign the bill June 24 at a White House ceremony. But that morning, he announced he would not sign it unless Congress also passed SAVE America Act, which would restrict vote-by-mail and require additional voter proofs of citizenship. That didn’t happen. But Trump didn’t veto the bill either, so under the Constitution it became law July 10 without his signature.
Under the law, large institutional investors that own 350 single-family homes or more will be barred from purchasing any new single-family homes, though they won’t have to sell the ones they have. There’s an exception to that cap if they decide to build new homes for rent, which would thereby increase the housing supply. The cap is a response to private equity firms having moved aggressively in recent years to buy up single family homes and turn them into rentals. As all-cash buyers with deep pockets, the firms have often been able to outbid individuals and families. It’s estimated that large investors now own 3% of the single-family rental market.
“It is the first time that hedge funds have ever been told, ‘Here’s a line, don’t cross it,’ and that line is not buying any more single-family homes.”
—Jeff Merkley, U.S. Senator (D-Oregon)
The 21st Century Road to Housing Act has dozens of other provisions, mostly tweaks to the rules of the federal housing bureaucracy and a green light for demonstration pilot projects.
Much of the responsibility for the affordable housing crisis lies with state and local laws that restrict development and drive up costs. The 21st Century Road to Housing Act directs the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to publish guidelines and best practice frameworks for state and local zoning and land-use policies that will lead to more affordable housing.
As the saying goes, defeat may be an orphan, but victory has a thousand fathers. In this case, the final legislation incorporated provisions from dozens of bills that had earlier been introduced in Congress, and that allowed dozens of members of Congress to credibly claim credit, including four Oregon Democrats: U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden and U.S. Representatives Janelle Bynum and Val Hoyle.
“There are some 20 plus proposals enacted into law in the bill that helped make housing more affordable” Merkley told the Labor Press. “None of them are anything that would create overnight a massive change, but they’re all about nudging, promoting, incentivizing a lot more housing construction, and getting the hedge funds out.”
For the last three Congresses, Merkley had introduced bills to bar private equity investors from buying single-family homes. The new law also includes proposals from a Bynum bill to incentivize pre-reviewed designs and from a Wyden and Hoyle bill to improve rural rent subsidies.
