The ROAD to Housing Act: Investor Limits, Zoning, and Vouchers

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is a bipartisan federal housing bill that cleared both chambers of Congress in June 2026 and is awaiting President Trump’s signature. It combines new zoning-incentive grants, rental assistance reforms, manufactured housing changes, rural housing fixes, and a first-of-its-kind federal restriction on large institutional investors buying single-family homes. The final package spans 12 titles and 56 provisions, and it authorizes no new funding to carry any of it out.¹

The Senate passed the final version 85 to 5 on June 22, 2026, and the House passed it 358 to 32 on June 23, 2026 — veto-proof margins in both chambers.¹ President Trump canceled a planned signing ceremony on June 24, 2026, saying he would not sign the bill unless Congress first passed a voter identification measure known as the Save America Act. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the following day that Congress was transmitting the bill to the White House, starting the 10-day window for presidential action, and that he expected Trump to sign it.²

Restrictions on Institutional Investors

Section 1001, titled “Homes Are for People, Not Corporations,” is the bill’s most politically contentious provision. It bars large institutional investors from buying additional single-family homes. A covered investor is a for-profit entity that directly or indirectly controls at least 350 single-family homes. The prohibition takes effect 180 days after enactment, and investors are not required to sell what they already own.³

The section includes several carve-outs. Build-to-rent developments, renovate-to-rent programs, homeownership programs with rent-to-own features, properties offering a 30-day “first look” period for renters, and age-restricted communities for residents 55 and older are all excluded. Covered investors must file annual reports with HUD disclosing their status and the number and location of homes they control. Civil penalties for violations run to $1 million per violation or three times the purchase price, whichever is greater.³

The provision was added in March 2026 to secure White House support for the broader package.⁴ The National Multifamily Housing Council has argued that institutional investment in single-family homes is small in absolute terms and provides market benefits. Supporters said restricting corporate purchasing opens homeownership to more families.⁵

Zoning Incentives and Housing Supply

Several new competitive grant programs push local governments toward permitting and building more housing. The largest is the Innovation Fund in Section 208, a $200 million-a-year program that rewards local governments and tribes that show measurable increases in housing supply through zoning changes, density bonuses, and streamlined permitting. It sunsets after seven years. Section 207 creates planning and implementation grants for regulatory-process updates and housing-transportation coordination, and Section 107 directs HUD to publish best-practice frameworks for state and local zoning and land-use policies.¹

The Accelerating Home Building Act in Section 209 funds communities that adopt pre-reviewed housing designs for duplexes, townhouses, and accessory dwelling units, with 10 percent reserved for rural areas. The RESIDE Act in Section 210 creates a pilot program to convert vacant commercial and industrial buildings into affordable housing, prioritizing economically distressed areas and Opportunity Zones.¹

Single-Stair Apartment Buildings

Section 102 directs HUD to establish guidelines for “point-access block” buildings, apartment buildings up to six stories served by a single stairway rather than two, and authorizes competitive grants for pilot projects. Most U.S. building codes currently require two stairways for buildings above three stories. Research from the Pew Charitable Trusts found that the second stairway accounts for roughly 6 to 13 percent of hard construction costs and about 7 percent of a building’s floor area, which can make small infill projects on narrow lots financially unworkable. Seattle, Honolulu, and New York City already allow single-stair residential buildings up to six stories, and as of late 2024 at least 11 states and five cities had enacted laws or amended regulations to explore the design.⁶

Rental Assistance and Voucher Changes

The act lifts the cap on the Rental Assistance Demonstration program by 100,000 units and extends tenant protections when public housing converts to private management (Section 212). Section 505 authorizes a new Moving to Work cohort, letting more housing authorities experiment with how they deliver aid.¹

Section 405, the Choice in Affordable Housing Act, streamlines Housing Choice Voucher inspections. Units financed through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, the HOME program, or USDA Rural Housing that have passed an inspection within the past year automatically satisfy voucher inspection requirements. New landlords can also request advance inspections. Both changes are aimed at the delays that discourage property owners from accepting vouchers in the first place.¹

HOME, CDBG, and Rural Housing

The HOME Investment Partnerships program is reauthorized with administrative reforms and streamlined environmental reviews under Section 501. Section 204 authorizes CDBG funds to be used for new affordable housing construction, a use not previously permitted. Section 504 permanently establishes the CDBG Disaster Recovery program for three years.¹

A Senate provision known as “Build Now,” which would have docked CDBG allocations from communities that failed to meet housing growth benchmarks, was removed in the House and did not survive to the final bill. The National Association of Counties cited that removal as a reason it supported the legislation.⁷

Rural housing gets its own fix. As mortgages on USDA-financed multifamily properties mature, the rental assistance tied to those properties has been expiring, putting an estimated 400,000 rural families at risk of displacement.⁸ Section 502, the Rural Housing Service Reform Act, decouples rental assistance from those maturing mortgages and permanently establishes the Housing Preservation and Revitalization program for multifamily rental housing. It also authorizes technology improvements and additional staffing for the Rural Housing Service. Section 103 exempts USDA infill housing from certain federal environmental review requirements, and Section 802 directs HUD and USDA to align their environmental review processes through a memorandum of understanding.¹

Manufactured and Modular Housing

Title III updates federal rules for factory-built housing. Section 301 eliminates the permanent chassis requirement for manufactured homes and establishes HUD as the primary authority for their energy efficiency standards.⁹ Section 302 requires the FHA to assess barriers to modular construction lending and consider changing financing draw schedules to encourage it. Section 303 increases FHA loan limits for manufactured housing, permits FHA property improvement loans to be used for accessory dwelling unit construction, and orders a HUD study on the cost-effectiveness of off-site construction. Section 304 reauthorizes the PRICE grant program for seven years to repair and preserve manufactured housing communities.¹

Provisions for Veterans

Title VI includes three veteran-focused changes. Section 601 requires the standard mortgage application to inform veterans of their potential VA home loan eligibility. Section 602 excludes disability benefits from income calculations for the HUD-VASH program, which provides housing vouchers and supportive services to homeless veterans, effectively expanding eligibility. Section 603, the VALID Act, enhances FHA mortgage disclosures so borrowers can compare VA loan options against conventional and FHA loans.¹

Two Provisions That Aren’t About Housing

Title IX raises the public welfare investment cap for banks from 15 to 20 percent, letting institutions close to their current limit put more money into affordable housing through tax credits.¹⁰

Title XI is the outlier. It places a four-year prohibition on the Federal Reserve issuing or creating a central bank digital currency, with the ban set to expire at the end of 2030. Republican lawmakers who inserted it characterized CBDCs as a “dangerous overreach of government surveillance,” although the Federal Reserve was not actively developing one. The housing bill served as the legislative vehicle.¹¹

What the Bill Does Not Do

The act reauthorizes programs, changes rules, and creates competitive grant frameworks, but it does not appropriate new money for its own implementation. The final text specifies that no additional funds are authorized. Existing institutional owners are not forced to divest their current single-family holdings. And the CDBG penalty that would have tied block grant funding to local housing production, which appeared in the Senate version, is not in the final law.¹

1
Bipartisan Policy Center. Inside the Deal: What’s in the Final 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act
2
ABC News. Johnson: Congress to Send Housing Bill to Trump
3
Greenberg Traurig. House Passes 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act With Changes to Institutional Investor Restrictions
4
U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Scott, Warren Release 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Legislative Package
5
Time. Housing Bill Congress Affordability Supply
6
The Pew Charitable Trusts. Small Single-Stairway Apartment Buildings Have Strong Safety Record
7
National Association of Counties. House Passes Revised Housing Package: Key County Wins
8
PBS NewsHour. 3 Programs in the Federal Housing Bill That Experts Say Could Have a Big Impact on Affordability
9
U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Section-by-Section for the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act
10
Novogradac. 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Is Passed in the House
11
CoinDesk. U.S. Senate Passes Housing Bill That Carries Four-Year Ban on a Fed CBDC