March 12 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed its widely bipartisan version of a bill aimed at tackling housing affordability, but the legislation is likely to be held up in the House over differences with its own bill.
The bill, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, passed the Senate on an 89 to 10 vote and contains more than three dozen provisions aimed at spurring new home and apartment construction by easing zoning, increasing the supply of modular and manufactured homes and banning institutional investors, CNN and The New York Times reported.
The House in February passed its own bill, the Housing in the 21st Century Act, which GOP leaders in the lower chamber have said means that lawmakers will need to negotiate gaps between the two bills — with new regulations on institutional investors as a major stumbling block.
“The Senate just passed the biggest housing bill in more than 30 years,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who sponsored the bill with Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said in a post on X. “The House should pass it immediately so we can lower housing costs for families across the country.”
The controversial measure would restrict how many single-family homes corporate landlords and private investors can own, allowing them to surpass a 350-home limit if they build them, but they would be required to sell the properties after 7 years.
Both bills would make it easier to build more manufactured homes by ending a requirement to include wheels and a chassis base, and would also encourage state and local governments to change zoning and land use regulations that could lead to construction of millions more housing units.
Several Republican members of the House, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who ran down a list of issues that will need to be reconciled between the two bills during a private meeting of the GOP caucus, Politico reported.
According to the report, banning large investors is not among the GOP’s priorities and some members are concerned about the Senate bill preventing the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital currency for at least five years.
The Trump administration last week offered support for the Senate Bill, encouraging Congress to pass it, but a host of House Republicans also have noted President Donald Trump’s vow not to sign any bill sent to his desk before the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which Democrats are blocking.
The legislation, if passed and signed into law, would change voting requirements just months before the 2026 mid-term elections, which Democrats have said amounts to “voter suppression.”
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