Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, announced on May 14 that she and Chairman French Hill (R-Ariz.) reached a new bipartisan agreement to pass an improved version of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act to the Senate.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a legislative package including the majority of the ROAD to Housing Act and the housing provisions from the 21st Century Housing Act, includes a bill that would ban large institutional investors from buying up single-family homes. If passed into law, the act would mark the largest legislative housing package in decades.

The updated legislation follows the bill’s initial passage in the House with bipartisan support, while the Senate amended the legislation to exclude over 20 provisions. In response, Waters called for a conference committee to reconcile the differences between the bills. After continuing negotiations with Hill, the House has now reached an agreement on a path forward.

“After months of continued bipartisan negotiation, I’m pleased that we were finally able to come together to move this critical housing legislation forward,” Waters said. “The affordable housing crisis demands immediate action. This updated bill restores key provisions to hold institutional investors accountable and protect renters, while expanding access to affordable housing opportunities for families across the country. I look forward to a strong bipartisan vote in the House and urge the Senate to swiftly take up the House bill so we can deliver real relief to the millions of Americans struggling to keep a roof over their heads.”

This legislation improves the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act by adding several provisions and changes. This House version of the act:

• Restores numerous Democratic provisions, which would expedite the building of multifamily, manufactured, rural housing, make available small-dollar mortgages, create a national eviction hotline, better protect borrowers and families living in federally assisted housing, and enhance federal oversight of housing providers.
• Removes the Senate’s Rental Assistance Demonstration and Moving to Work provisions, which would weaken tenant protections and reduce federal oversight, leaving tenants in federally assisted housing vulnerable to displacement and harmful policies.
• Prohibits large institutional investors that own over 350 single-family homes from purchasing such homes and allows for certain exempted purchases, including build-to-rent properties.
• Restores bipartisan provisions, including five led by Democratic members, to support thousands of community financial institutions, including community banks, credit unions, community development financial institutions, minority depository institutions, and rural depository institutions that provide critical financing to homebuyers and housing developers.
• Ensures the continuation of critical housing construction and its financing and protecting tenants from eviction by eliminating earlier Senate language which would require the disposition of certain purchased properties.
• Creates a renter hotline and public website for reporting, monitoring and resolving renter disputes with large institutional investor landlords.
• Provides clarification in definitions of covered large institutional investor, covered single family home, and excepted purchase, including removing loopholes that could harm renters with land contracts and exempting Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and other housing types at risk of unintended consequences.

Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), chair and ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, respectively, recently released a section-by-section analysis of the legislative package.

For more stories on affordable housing, visit our sister publicationThe Title Report's Housing Inventory & Attainability Watch library.