Congress has passed a landmark housing affordability bill that could make the path to homeownership more attainable for many Americans, though President Donald Trump is now delaying signing the bipartisan bill into law.
On Tuesday, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill—the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act—that aims to address the housing affordability crisis by revising federal housing programs, increasing the supply of affordable homes, and strengthening the role that community banks can play in mortgage lending, among other measures. After months of wrangling, politicians on both sides of the aisle were able to do something that seems increasingly rare these days: agree.
But any hint of an easing of political divisions was quickly dashed.
Trump started Wednesday by diminishing what he previously called “the most comprehensive and consequential housing legislation” in history and posted on Truth Social that the housing bill was “of minor importance compared to lower interest rates.” In a subsequent post, Trump said he had canceled an event at the Capitol where he was slated to sign into legislation—-until Congress passes an elections bill known as the SAVE America Act, which he said he considers “a national emergency.”
Though the housing affordability bill is now being waylaid as it’s used as a pawn in a political game of chess, it is still being widely heralded as an important step in addressing housing affordability ahead of the midterm elections.
WHY THE BILL IS BEING HAILED A LANDMARK
The bill aims to increase the supply of affordable housing by expanding available financing, opening up new grants programs, creating incentives for local communities to build more housing, and streamlining or reducing some regulations that have slowed down construction.
“It is the most important and most comprehensive housing bill of this century,” Shaun Donovan, president of Enterprise Community Partners and a former secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration, told The New York Times. “It contains dozens of provisions that, taken together, go directly at the most important housing challenge of this moment, which is our housing supply.”
Affordability dominates the financial concerns of Americans, according to an annual survey that Gallup conducted in April. And affordability has become a top priority for Congress, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts who co-sponsored the bill, told NPR.
“Every time every member of Congress goes back home they hear how urgent it is to bring down home prices,” Warren said. “And that’s what the bill does.”
HOW THE HOUSING BILL TACKLES AFFORDABILITY
As is true with most bills that come out of Congress, the housing bill doesn’t make for light reading. Clocking in at more than 370 pages, it contains proposals from both the House and Senate that focus on increasing the housing supply, modernizing federal programs, supporting production of affordable housing, and improving access to affordable rental housing and homeownership.
One of the bill’s main priorities is modernizing and streamlining federal housing programs to eliminate regulatory bottlenecks and expand available financing for affordable housing. It will also broaden eligibility for some federal grant programs and introduce a new pilot program to offer grants and forgivable loans to eligible homeowners and landlords for whole-home repairs.
What’s more, the bill places a big emphasis on manufactured housing and eliminates a previous requirement that these must be constructed with a permanent chassis—or the steel frame that makes it possible to move them. This could both reduce construction costs and speed up production.
HOW THE HOUSING BILL ADDRESSES REGULATION
The bill also reexamines some regulatory issues that may have served as potential barriers to construction. In addition to exempting certain housing-related activities from the environmental review process required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the bill focuses on reforming restrictive zoning codes.
Deregulation and pro-building policies are “a great start” toward progress in the current affordability crisis, Kevin Brown, president of the National Association of Realtors said during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
“This bill is extremely important to increasing affordability in the housing market,” Brown said, according to reporting by Realtor.com. “You’re cutting red tape, you’re cutting regulator burdens, and you’re increasing inventory. That’s a way that we’re going to be able to tackle the affordability crisis.”
COULD IT BECOME EASIER TO GET A MORTGAGE?
The bill also includes a lengthy section about “strengthening community banks’ role in housing,” with an emphasis on keeping deposits local. By loosening some of the post-financial crisis compliance on smaller banks, this may make it easier for prospective homeowners, particularly in lower-cost areas, to qualify for a mortgage.
Larger banks have typically dominated the mortgage lending race in recent years, so easing some of the stringent compliance rules on smaller banks could help, according to Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com. And the legislation includes regulatory reforms to promote lending and housing affordability supported by both the Independent Community Bankers of America and the American Bankers Association.
“This bipartisan legislation will help ease supervisory and compliance pressures on smaller institutions, encourage the formation of new banks and strengthen collaboration between large and community-based lenders to better meet the needs of local communities,” Rob Nichols, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association, said in a statement.
NOT A QUICK FIX
Despite bipartisan support, however, getting this bill passed required concessions by both parties and included demands from both chambers. But it still contains many of the provisions outlined in the version passed by the House of Representatives in February.
“No bill is perfect, and no stakeholder gets everything they want,” David M. Dworkin, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference, said in a statement. “But progress depends on finding common ground and building consensus around practical solutions.”
And experts caution that while the bill presents much-needed progress, it could still take several years to fix a long-brewing housing affordability and supply crisis. The U.S. housing supply gap widened to more than 4 million homes in 2025, according to an annual report from Realtor.com.
“Housing affordability won’t change overnight—it took us many years to get to this point,” Tara Roche, who leads the housing policy initiative for the Pew Charitable Trusts, told The New York Times. “But when communities are able to build more housing, price pressures ease over time.”
