--- title: Here's What's In the Sweeping Housing Bill the Senate Passed description: The legislation, which would be the largest housing package signed into law in decades, now faces an uncertain path in the House. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/03/13/housing-bill-congress-prices-affordability-construction/ author: Connor Greene article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-03-13T16:46:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-19T07:44:49.780Z article:section: Politics og:title: Here's What's In the Sweeping Housing Bill the Senate Passed og:description: The legislation, which would be the largest housing package signed into law in decades, now faces an uncertain path in the House. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/03/13/housing-bill-congress-prices-affordability-construction/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c23912bd8f09d75/69b4350c1d482f3fffd8770e/GettyImages-2228117844.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: GettyImages-2228117844.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's What's In the Sweeping Housing Bill the Senate Passed twitter:description: The legislation, which would be the largest housing package signed into law in decades, now faces an uncertain path in the House. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c23912bd8f09d75/69b4350c1d482f3fffd8770e/GettyImages-2228117844.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Senate Has Passed What Could Be the Largest Housing Package in Decades. Here’s What’s In It by [Connor Greene](https://time.com/author/connor-greene/) ## Connor Greene Editorial Fellow Mar 13, 2026 4:46 PM UTC  An aerial view of single family homes in Miami, Florida, on August 1, 2025. An aerial view of single family homes in Miami, Florida, on August 1, 2025.Joe Raedle—Getty Images by [Connor Greene](https://time.com/author/connor-greene/) ## Connor Greene Editorial Fellow Mar 13, 2026 4:46 PM UTC The Senate has passed a sweeping piece of housing legislation that seeks to bolster the U.S. housing supply and lower costs for home-buyers in an overwhelming bipartisan vote. The [21st Century ROAD to Housing Act](https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/MIR26311.pdf) would be the largest housing package to be signed into law in decades. After passing the Senate by a vote of 89-10 on Thursday, the bill now heads to the House, where it faces an uncertain path despite the broad support it garnered in the upper chamber. The House passed its [own version](https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20260209/HR%206644.pdf) of the legislation last month, but several lawmakers have voiced opposition to certain changes made by Senators, including a provision that would bar institutional investors from owning single-family homes. **Read more:** [_The Lone Democrat Who Voted Against the Bipartisan Housing Bill_](https://time.com/article/2026/03/13/democrat-brian-schatz-voted-against-senate-housing-bill/) Even if the Senate-passed bill makes it to Trump’s desk, the President has [vowed](https://time.com/article/2026/03/10/trump-save-america-act-republicans-congress-voter-ID-senate-john-thune/) not to sign any legislation until lawmakers approve the SAVE America Act, a bill that would impose stricter voter identification requirements around the country and limit mail-in voting. The measure is expected to be considered by the Senate next week after passing the House last month, but it is expected to be all but doomed in the upper chamber given Democratic opposition and Republicans’ slim majority. Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who coauthored the Senate housing bill, celebrated its passage in the upper chamber on Thursday. “The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act will boost housing supply and bring down costs,” [said](https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/scott-warren-release-21st-century-road-to-housing-act-legislative-package-to-boost-housing-supply-and-bring-down-costs) Warren in a statement. “I stand ready to deliver it to President Trump’s desk, fulfilling the promise he made to Americans at the State of the Union,” Scott said. “Not only is this bill about cutting regulatory red tape, lowering costs, and expanding housing supply while generating no new spending, but it’s about making sure people like the single mom who raised me in North Charleston, South Carolina, have even greater access to economic opportunity and the American dream of homeownership.” Here’s what to know about what’s in the landmark package. ## Relaxing regulations to boost homebuilding The bill seeks to enable more and faster homebuilding to increase the housing supply, including by streamlining environmental reviews and encouraging state and local governments to reform zoning rules and other regulations. "If we want to bring down the cost of housing, we've got to build a lot more," Warren [told NPR](https://www.npr.org/2026/03/12/nx-s1-5742566/senate-bipartisan-housing-bill-investors-ban). "And what I love about this bill is that it has more than 40 different provisions in it, all of which aim in the same direction, which is to give a push toward building more housing." One section of the legislation seeks to “cut red tape around environmental reviews, empowering state, local, and tribal governments to streamline reviews and increase housing development,” a [summary](https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/21%20ROAD%20to%20Housing%20Act%20Section-by-Section%20FINAL%5F1os4kxg8uk1et.pdf) of the bill from the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs states. Others would create programs to offer grants or loans for state, local, and tribal governments “to assist planning and implementation activities associated with affordable housing”—including making updates to regulatory requirements and zoning codes—and to award those that successfully increase housing supplies in their communities. The bill would also make way for the increased production of manufactured homes, factory-built units that are quicker and cheaper to produce than most traditional homes. Such homes have been required to have a “permanent chassis,” a wheeled steel frame that allows for their transportation, but most are never moved again after they’re placed at a destination, and the requirement can limit the locations where the homes are allowed. By updating the definition of a manufactured house to include units “without a permanent chassis,” the bill aims to—in the words of the summary—“encourage innovation and expand naturally-occurring affordable housing.”. ## Mitigating costs for homeowners and buyers As well as seeking to improve housing affordability by encouraging more home production, the bill also includes several provisions intended to lower costs for homeowners, homebuyers, landlords, and renters in other ways. One section, for instance, would create a program to offer grants and forgivable loans to homeowners and landlords seeking to repair their homes. Another would reauthorize grants to fund repairs and improvements to manufactured homes. Yet another provision of the bill would require the Federal Housing Administration to increase limits on loans for multifamily mortgages to better match market costs and improve affordability for buyers. The legislation would also extend and lift the cap on a Housing and Urban Development Department [program](https://www.hud.gov/hud-partners/rad) aimed at maintaining long-term affordability at public housing units and codify protections for tenants under the program. ## Prohibiting institutional investors The bill would ban large, institutional investors from buying some single-family homes, “to promote homeownership opportunities for American families, not corporations,” the summary states. Such investors are defined by the bill as those that directly or indirectly own 350 or more single-family units, with the exception of government entities. In January, Trump signed an [Executive Order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/01/stopping-wall-street-from-competing-with-main-street-homebuyers/) that directed his Administration to implement a similar ban in order to prohibit single-family homes from being “purchased by large Wall Street investors, crowding out families seeking to buy homes.” **Read more:**[_Trump Is Moving to Bar Wall Street Firms From Buying Single-Family Homes. Here’s What That Would Mean for Affordability_](https://time.com/7355938/trump-wall-street-investors-housing-prices-affordability-order/) The bill would still allow large investors to build new homes and do work on existing homes, but would require that those properties be sold to prospective home-buyers after seven years. This provision of the bill, however, is [not projected to have a large impact](https://time.com/7355938/trump-wall-street-investors-housing-prices-affordability-order/) on the housing market. Experts previously told TIME that the restrictions sought by Trump’s Executive Order would likely have a limited impact, and wouldn’t address the factors most responsible for high housing prices. “This executive order appears to be fairly benign in practical terms,” Tobias Peter, a co-director at the American Enterprise Institute Housing Center, told TIME. “It gives the impression that the Administration is taking action against these institutional investors, but the actual channels that it targets are likely limited.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/03/13/housing-bill-congress-prices-affordability-construction/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/03/13/housing-bill-congress-prices-affordability-construction/"},"headline":"The Senate Has Passed What Could Be the Largest Housing Package in Decades. 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