June 24, 2026
In overwhelming bipartisan votes this week, Congress passed the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. Following its passage, President Trump has signaled that he may withhold his signature as leverage in unrelated negotiations. Given the strong bipartisan support, enactment is broadly expected though the timing remains uncertain. The bill represents months of work by Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate to address what both parties increasingly agree is a housing affordability crisis. Contained within its over 350 pages are dozens of provisions designed to streamline and incentivize the production of new housing and expand access to homeownership. While numerous provisions are still subject to agency rulemaking and the ultimate impact will take years to measure, RCLCO and RFA are already working with clients to think through the implications. Below we highlight some of the key features of the bill and takeaways for the industry.
Congress votes YIMBY
The bill embraces a bipartisan consensus that more housing is needed and that regulation, at least in part, creates barriers to supply and increases housing costs. Several provisions take direct aim at federal-level barriers to new deliveries, including streamlining National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental reviews and establishing HUD guidelines for single-stair apartment buildings. The bill also ties Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) funding to local housing production, where a portion of funding from CDBG recipients that don’t meet certain housing performance thresholds will be redirected to communities that do. These are meaningful steps, but the binding constraints on housing supply are largely state and local – NAHB estimates that regulations add $130,000 or 26% to the cost of new single-family homes, largely driven by local zoning, permitting, and building code requirements. To that end, the bill’s greatest impact here may be the precedent it sets and the incentive structures it creates for state and municipal governments to follow.
New programs and capital for housing
Beyond deregulation, the bill introduces a range of grant programs and investment incentives aimed at expanding housing supply, with a focus on affordable units. The bill gives HUD discretion to prioritize Opportunity Zone-located projects when awarding competitive housing grants, layering an additional advantage onto the OZ framework that was permanently extended in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It also opens CDBG funding to new construction for the first time, reauthorizes the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, and creates several pro-supply competitive grant programs. Several other changes, including the elevation of the public welfare investment cap and increasing FHA per-unit multifamily loan limits, support additional affordable housing investment. Taken together, these provisions (and others) represent a meaningful expansion of the federal toolkit, particularly for affordable housing.
Manufactured housing likely to be a winner
The bill’s most consequential change for factory-built housing is the elimination of the permanent chassis requirement for manufactured homes. Only 5% to 7% of manufactured homes are ever moved after initial placement, and the chassis adds $5,000 to $10,000 to the cost of each unit — up to 9% of the average price of a single-section home. Beyond direct cost savings, removing the chassis enables multi-story and higher-density configurations that are impractical under the current standard and expands where and how manufactured homes can be deployed. The additional design flexibility and lower price point position the sector to expand supply across a broader range of geographies.
A sigh of relief for BTR
Though a small part of the overall housing market, single-family rentals (SFR) and its even smaller build-to-rent (BTR) subsector, received a significant amount of attention from the President, Congress, and the media. Both parties pursued (and achieved) limitations on large-scale “corporate” and “Wall Street” ownership of single-family homes for rent. These lines of attack are popular with voters, though ignore the significant role that the sector played post-GFC to stabilize the housing and home-lending sectors. The final legislation restricts the purchase of homes by large-scale owners, defined as those with 350 or more homes, a provision that may be problematic in future downturns.
Due to widespread industry education and lobbying efforts, lawmakers removed the requirement to divest of build-to-rent homes after seven years, an acknowledgement that BTR is creating much-needed affordable housing supply. The roughly six months of debate targeting SFR and BTR virtually ground the industry to a halt, with transactions and new starts falling to a fraction of their normal pace. Ultimately, regulatory clarity—at least at the Federal level—offered by the enactment of the law should outweigh the restrictions put in place. Even in recent weeks as the House and Senate advanced towards a final compromise, RCLCO and RFA heard a growing drumbeat of owners, investors, and lenders returning to the space.
As implementation moves from legislation to regulation, the practical implications will vary by market, product type, and capital strategy. RCLCO and RFA are actively evaluating the implications across the real estate industry and will be helping clients and investors assess these changes and position their investments and development strategies to capitalize on the opportunities ahead.
