Congress Clears Bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, Sending Bill to President

The Senate on Monday completed congressional passage of H.R. 6644, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, voting 85-5 to accept House changes to a sweeping bipartisan housing package that would pair measures to boost housing supply with new restrictions on some large institutional investors buying single-family homes.

The vote, recorded at 5:40 p.m. Eastern on June 22, finished bicameral approval of a bill that tackles two politically potent housing issues at once: the shortage of homes and concerns about large investors competing with would-be homeowners in the single-family market. According to the Senate roll-call record, 10 senators did not vote.

The House approved its amended version of the bill on May 20 by 396-13, according to the House clerk’s roll call. The Senate had previously passed its own version on March 12 by 89-10, according to Senate Banking Committee materials. As of June 23, the next step was enrollment and presentation to the president, and no public record had yet shown that the bill had been formally presented to the White House.

Available bill text and official summaries show the package spans a wide range of housing policy. On the supply side, it includes provisions to streamline some environmental reviews, modernize rules for manufactured housing and update federal housing programs including HOME and Community Development Block Grant funding, known as CDBG. It also would revise tools used to finance multifamily housing, a broad category that includes apartment buildings.

The bill also takes aim at some large-scale ownership of single-family houses. For purposes of the legislation, a “large institutional investor” is defined as an entity that directly or indirectly controls at least 350 single-family homes, with some exceptions.

Under the bill text, certain purchases by those investors would trigger disposal requirements designed to move some homes to individual buyers within set deadlines. In some cases, renters would get rights of first refusal or “first look” periods, giving them an early chance to buy a home before it could be sold more broadly. The Treasury Department would enforce the rules through civil penalties of up to $1 million per violation, or three times the purchase price, whichever is greater.

The measure’s breadth extends beyond housing. Among its titles is a provision that would bar the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency through Dec. 31, 2030, though that is not the bill’s main focus.

In the Senate, the package has been closely associated with Sen. Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, an alliance that underscored the bill’s unusually broad bipartisan support. Scott said in Senate Banking Committee materials before the March vote, “I urge this body to vote yes on this bill, and let’s create more homeowners at an earlier age.”

The Biden administration signaled support earlier this year. In a March 2 Statement of Administration Policy, the White House Office of Management and Budget said, “The Administration strongly supports passage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act… If the Senate Amendment to H.R. 6644 were presented to the President in its current form, his advisors would recommend that he sign it into law.”

Supporters have cast the legislation as one of the most significant housing packages in decades. Sen. Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, wrote on social media after the vote that it was “the largest housing bill in over 30 years,” though that benchmark has not been independently established in the available research.

What is clear is that Congress has now cleared a far-reaching housing measure with overwhelming bipartisan margins in both chambers. The bill now awaits the final clerical steps before it can be sent to the president for possible signature.