The Senate voted 85-5 on Monday to pass the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, a sweeping bipartisan compromise that would bar institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes and send the legislation to the House for a final vote before reaching President Trump's desk.
Only five Republican senators opposed the measure: Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rick Scott of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Mike Lee of Utah. Every other member of both parties backed it, a margin that would be remarkable in any Congress, and especially so in this one.
The bill represents the most significant federal intervention in the housing market in years. It targets the practice of large private-equity-backed firms snapping up single-family homes and converting them into rental portfolios, a trend that has priced out working families in markets across the country. The legislation also deregulates mortgage lending for smaller banks, extends disaster-recovery funding, and aims to cut federal red tape that slows new housing construction.
Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican who shepherded the bill, framed the vote in personal terms. As the New York Post reported, Scott issued a statement before the vote laying out the bill's goals:
"This bill is the result of years of work to lower costs, expand housing supply, cut red tape, protect taxpayers, and help more Americans achieve the dream of home ownership."
Scott then turned personal, invoking his upbringing in North Charleston, South Carolina:
"For me, this is personal. I know what it means for a family to have a safe, affordable place to call home because I watched my mother work hard to make that dream a reality in North Charleston, South Carolina."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who serves as the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, called the measure "historic." She said it would "for the first time ever" halt "private equity from buying up homes." Warren told AP News, "We have a housing shortage all across America. We need more housing of every kind."
That Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren ended up on the same side of any bill tells you something about how badly the housing market has broken. When a conservative from the Deep South and one of the Senate's most progressive members both see the same villain, Wall Street landlords, the political alignment is hard to ignore.
The legislation's headline provision bars institutional investors from buying single-family homes. The Washington Examiner reported that the bill specifically limits large institutional investors like Blackstone from purchasing single-family homes, while also easing federal regulations and encouraging state and local zoning reform.
AP News reported a more specific threshold in an earlier version of the legislation: companies owning 350 or more single-family homes would be barred from buying additional ones. Those firms could still rent out homes they already own but would be required to sell to individual buyers after seven years. Whether that precise threshold survived into the final compromise text is not entirely clear from available reporting.
Beyond the investor ban, the bill extends the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery program for three years, helping cities and localities recover from presidential disaster declarations. It also includes banking deregulation provisions designed to make it simpler for smaller community banks to engage in mortgage lending, a priority for Republicans who have long argued that post-2008 regulations crushed small lenders while leaving Wall Street giants untouched.
The compromise also addresses manufactured housing. AP News noted the bill removes the permanent chassis requirement for manufactured homes, a regulatory change that could expand affordable housing options in rural and lower-income areas. The legislation streamlines environmental reviews and expands Section 8 funding flexibility as well.
Monday's vote was the culmination of months of legislative maneuvering. The Senate first passed its version of the bill in March by a vote of 89-10. The House followed in May, approving its own version 396-13, a lopsided margin that reflected broad frustration with housing costs across both parties.
The two chambers then had to reconcile their differences. Rep. French Hill, the Arkansas Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, said nine of his chamber's key provisions ended up in the final package. Breitbart reported the bill was negotiated by a bipartisan group that included Scott, Warren, Hill, and Rep. Maxine Waters.
Hill expressed confidence the bill would reach the president's desk. In a statement, he called it "a meaningful step toward increasing housing supply, improving affordability, and helping more Americans achieve homeownership." He added: "I look forward to President Trump signing it into law."
The bill now heads back to the House for a final vote on the compromise version. The Washington Examiner described it as the second-biggest economic bill of Trump's second term and reported the House is expected to pass it overwhelmingly.
President Trump laid the groundwork for this legislation earlier this year. In January, he called on Congress to pass a bill stopping investors from scooping up single-family homes. He also signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to examine Wall Street purchases of single-family homes "for anti-competitive effects."
Trump's social media post at the time was blunt: "People live in homes, not corporations," as Just The News reported. That message captured a populist instinct that cuts across traditional partisan lines, and it gave both parties in Congress the political cover to act.
The president had previously signaled his support for the housing legislation and expressed confidence that the House and Senate would find common ground. Monday's 85-5 vote suggests that confidence was well placed.
The five senators who voted no, Tuberville, Johnson, Rick Scott, Paul, and Lee, represent the Senate's most fiscally conservative and libertarian-leaning wing. None of them offered public statements explaining their opposition in the available reporting, but the pattern is familiar. These are members who routinely oppose large-scale federal legislation on principle, skeptical of any expansion of government's role in markets regardless of the stated purpose.
That skepticism is not without merit. Conservatives who worry about unintended consequences of federal housing intervention have history on their side. But the political reality is that institutional investors buying thousands of homes in Sun Belt cities and turning them into permanent rentals has created a visible, tangible problem that voters in both parties want addressed.
Sen. Rick Scott, one of the five dissenters, has been active on other fronts in challenging Democratic priorities in Congress. His opposition here likely reflects a broader resistance to the regulatory framework rather than sympathy for Wall Street landlords.
The 85-5 margin is striking in a chamber where even routine nominations can become partisan warfare. The recent dynamics among Senate Republicans have shown a caucus capable of rallying together when the political incentives align. Housing affordability, an issue that hits every congressional district in America, provided exactly that alignment.
Warren's characterization of the bill as "historic" is the kind of word politicians overuse. But in this case, the substance supports it. Congress has never before moved to restrict institutional investors from the single-family housing market at this scale. Whether the restrictions prove effective, or whether Wall Street finds workarounds, remains to be seen.
The bill still needs a House vote on the compromise version. Given that the House passed its own version 396-13, final passage appears likely. The broader question is whether the legislation will actually move the needle on housing costs, or whether it arrives too late, after institutional investors have already locked up millions of homes.
Several open questions remain. How exactly does the bill define "institutional investor"? What enforcement mechanisms exist to prevent firms from restructuring to avoid the threshold? And will the banking deregulation provisions genuinely help community lenders compete, or simply add another layer of complexity to an already tangled mortgage market?
The broader congressional landscape remains contentious on nearly every other issue. That housing broke through the gridlock says less about Washington's capacity for cooperation and more about how badly the problem has festered.
For years, Americans watched as hedge funds and private-equity firms bought up neighborhoods, drove up prices, and converted the dream of homeownership into a subscription service. Washington noticed only after voters in both parties made clear they were furious about it.
The 21st Century Road to Housing Act is a genuine attempt to push back. It passed with margins that would have been unthinkable on almost any other issue. It targets a real problem with identifiable culprits. And it carries provisions, deregulating small banks, cutting red tape on construction, extending disaster recovery, that reflect conservative priorities alongside the investor ban.
Whether this bill fixes the housing crisis or merely treats one symptom, the principle it affirms is the right one: American homes should belong to American families, not to corporate balance sheets.
