By Kirk McClure and Alex Schwartz
A sweeping housing measure, which became law on July 11, 2026, is being widely celebrated as a crucial step in addressing the nation’s housing crisis. The ROAD to Housing Act is one of the few substantive bills passed by Congress in recent years, and the first major housing bill enacted since the 1990s.
Despite clearing Congress with overwhelming margins in the Senate and the House, the measure encountered one final hiccup when President Donald Trump abruptly canceled its signing ceremony on June
24, and then again refused to sign it on July 10. However, since Trump did not veto the bill, it automatically became law at 12:01 a.m. on July 11.
Despite the bipartisan support, however, even supporters say it doesn’t do enough to ease America’s housing affordability crunch.
Many of the 60 provisions in the wide-ranging bill are regulatory in nature, such as streamlining environmental impact reviews and reducing the frequency of inspections for homes with tenants receiving federal rental assistance. Others seek to make it easier for homebuyers to acquire financing.
These elements and more could help move the needle on the nation’s housing morass.
But as housing policy scholars, we believe the improvements will be only marginal. That’s because the reforms do not address the main source of the nation’s housing problem: that millions of renters and homeowners lack the income necessary to cover their housing costs.
Promising changes
The bill does include several important reforms.
The provision that has received the most attention limits the ability of private equity firms and other institutional investors to acquire and operate single-family homes as rental properties.
Although institutional investors account for about 2% of all single-family rentals nationally, they have a bigger presence in certain housing markets, mostly in the South. These firms will typically purchase homes in cash, disadvantaging individual homebuyers who need to take out a mortgage. They’ve also been known to more aggressively raise rents and initiate eviction proceedings than other landlords.
The legislation also includes several measures aimed at reducing home prices and increasing housing supply.
One reduces the cost of manufactured housing – often known as mobile homes – by eliminating the requirement to include a steel chassis that can be attached to wheels. This is expected to reduce building costs by around US$5,000 to $10,000, or about 4% to 8% of the average cost of a new unit.
Other cost-saving elements include streamlining environmental reviews for proposed housing developments and encouraging new designs for midsize apartment buildings that would allow for just one stairway. Fire safety regulations have long required multifamily buildings to contain two or more staircases so that residents can exit their homes safely if one staircase is impassable because of smoke or other reasons.
However, improvements in fire safety have largely eliminated the need for the second staircase in midsize buildings. By eliminating the two-stairway requirement, developers can reduce their construction costs and have more flexibility in their architectural designs.
Another component requires the Department of Housing and Urban Development to issue guidelines and “best-practice frameworks” for zoning and land-use policies, presumably to nudge cities and towns to allow developers to build smaller homes on smaller lots.
To further facilitate housing construction, the bill requires local governments that receive federal funding for community development to publish a “searchable online database of undeveloped land parcels,” which is intented to make it easier to identify potential low-cost development sites.
The bill also encourages the Federal Housing Administration and other lenders to issue “small dollar mortgages” of less than $100,000. Currently, when low-priced homes are available, it can be difficult for interested homebuyers to obtain financing because it is more profitable for lenders to underwrite larger mortgages.
Finally, the law reauthorizes for three years the Community
Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program. This program helps cities, counties and states recover from disasters declared by U.S. presidents, focusing on low- and moderate-income households.
While most of the legislation focuses on homeowner housing, a couple of provisions address important challenges for subsidized rental housing. One seeks to encourage landlord participation in the Housing Choice Voucher Program by making it easier for landlords to satisfy the federal government’s housing inspection requirements.
Another provision helps protect low-income rural renters from losing their homes when the federally funded mortgages on their buildings expire. Currently, these rent subsidies, which are provided by the Department of Agriculture, can only be used in the buildings it finances. Many of these mortgages are due to expire over the next few years, putting residents with rental assistance at risk of eviction. The legislation will enable these households to remain in place or move to other buildings without federally funded mortgages.
Americans are still being crushed by costs
Yet as sweeping as the bill is, its impact is likely to be modest.
Nearly all of the legislation involves regulatory changes. The bill does not increase subsidies available to low-income renters and homeowners, or to potential homebuyers.
The majority of all renters are cost burdened, meaning they currently spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Over a quarter of all homeowners are cost burdened, too. The legislation almost certainly will not diminish this affordability crisis.
Several measures aim to reduce the cost of new housing. But with few exceptions, they are contingent on the support and participation of states, cities and suburbs.
For example, nothing in the bill requires localities to change their zoning and building codes to allow more apartment buildings or smaller single-family homes to be built at higher densities. Homeowners are usually strongly opposed to development if they fear it will change the character of their community or lower the value of their property. Existing homeowners do not want – and almost certainly will not allow – a wholesale erosion of their home equity. They will continue to fight to preserve the valuations of their homes.
Nor does the House’s passage of the bill mean that Congress has become more supportive of low-income housing. On the same day that the House
passed the bill, the House Appropriations Committee released its fiscal year 2027 budget proposal for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. It included cuts to public housing, Community Development Block Grants, the Home Investment Partnership Program and the Housing Choice Voucher Program.
Now that it is law, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act will hopefully accelerate reform efforts. But on its own, it’s less a speedway that will supercharge housing supply and provide immediate relief for the most cost-burdened Americans, and more a modest on-ramp that reflects the limits of what’s politically feasible in a divided and polarized Congress.
Kirk McClure is Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning at the University of Kansas. Alex Schwartz is Emeritus Professor of Urban Policy at the New School.
JimboXYZ says
Exactly, all the legislation that Trump didn’t sign off on is to create an environment of default & foreclosure. The government can help with down payment assistance & the other programs that get people into the housing. That’s great for the banking, insurance & real estate industry professionals to be paid quite well on unaffordable mortgages. But the fact remains that home prices are unaffordable, the interest rates are still significantly higher than they were before the crap show of Biden-Harris made home ownership a relative buy here-pay here used car lot of eviction & repossession. Nobody on a $ 7.35/hour monimum wage was buying a home, raising it to $ 15/hour wasn’t buying a home that doubled or more for a listing price. That Lamdmark legislation is the same pack of lies that have been fed to anyone going back to the Clinton => W Bush handoff of affordable housing. That was 2001. The economy had to collapse to bailout the banking & reset the real estate industry. Until the Biden-Harris fiasco, that was the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American masses in my lifetime. Those W Bush era babies are now in their mid 20’s & paying the price for Clinton & Bush, Obama & Biden, & to some extent Trump-Pence. Those are the self proclaimed economic geniuses that the Ivy League produces. Of course they’re economic whizzes, they were 1st one’s skimming their cut on the government gravy train. Harris was correct when she says “We have to understand how we got here.” when she ran against Trump-Vance as Biden-Harris-Walz. Neither Trump nor Harris, has/had a real solution to this, just perpetuating what has already been set into motion for decades. I’m on record for making those comments throughout 2024. Doubting even Trump-Vance could undo the damage of the “no return” Biden-Harris-Walz were going to perpetuate for winning 2025-2028 of 4 more years. I can’t imagine the field of BS con artists that will be running in 2028 for the WH ? What any of them could even say with a straight face that isn’t the next biggest lies they’re going to spin to solve problems that are spiraling out of control. Inflation continues to rule the day, that’s their solution, make up more numbers, because that’s the number they need to keep the USA solvent rather than bankrupt. The noise is Social Security will be bankrupt 2032. Anyone believing Gavin Newsom or Mamdani has a solution ? Look at California & NYC, if you aren’t making it in Florida, Texas or elsewhere, try making a go of it in California or NYC ?
JimboXYZ says
If you have 20 minutes, Elon Musk & Joe Rogan discuss it. At times, Musk even sounds incoherent for where to start as a beginning for a Rogan question. Imagine a dolt like Biden trying to grasp concepts as POTUS ? If Trump sucks, Biden was/is just another level of sucks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFNfUPZXskU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t4wHZ5cjk4
This one is even better, AI is mentioned, growing an economy with AI that excludes people for jobs. The problem with AI, ultimately a human has to do the work. No Amazon package ever has been delivered without a human leaving the package on the doorstep. I disagree that there will be universal high income for all. Just isn’t human nature, that fantasy. Everyone thinks they got the best Ford F150 truck Ford made. And giving the drug addicts anything they want with a universal high income ? What a fantasy that is, look at the news of all the 100+ mph super speeders ? Over the weekend we had the Tesla nut/whack job that crashed into a scooter just in St Augustine. Start giving idiot America unlimited access to something that is beyond their capability to operate ? Interesting it was an EV Tesla, most likely not self driving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCAEzdtPyOg
Laurel says
It’s a start, and it’s best point is that it was bipartisan! We need more of that.
Mortgage help is important too. When I bought my first home, I had an FHA loan. I think I only had to put down $5K to get in, but to be fair, I went for a starter home. Some young folks think they should get what their parents have now. But then again, starter homes are not available. That needs to change.
I see many options for new starter homes. Quonset homes are much cheaper than traditional homes, and many are becoming downright beautiful. They need to be accepted in established neighborhoods. Prefabs are getting better, and are often very attractive. Shotguns will be coming back. Three D printer homes are not far off.
The real problem we are facing now, are private equity firms. They are coldheartedly buying up everything the average Americans need. They are buying up homes, in bulk, buying up apartment buildings, buying up materials needed for home building and they are price setting. We talked to a woman in Georgia, who stated her apartment building has turned over four times in the last year or so. Her rent keeps increasing with each purchase. She, and others she knows, are now worried about where they will be able to afford to move. How do you move from one equity firm owned apartment building to another? These equity firms are squeezing the last penny out of average people.
The equity firms are also buying up businesses. They are buying up veterinary emergency businesses, and now, small, neighborhood vet clinics, making pet care even more unaffordable. They are buying all sorts of local businesses, and jacking up prices and price setting. We’re talking electricians, plumbers, landscaping, a/c and so forth. When all prices are set, the consumer can’t compare and choose companies. They have to take it or leave it. Many will have to leave it.
Y’all really need to watch these equity firm purchases, because I believe they are a real threat to our affordability in all sorts of ways. The greed is substantial. Regulation on equity firm purchases are needed before it’s too late.
JimboXYZ says
Today’s starter homes, what any of the rest if us had opportunity for decades back like you said “don’t exist” anymore. That starter home, spin & terminology speak for Money Pit or even DIYer, in a lot of communities throughout FL are $ 350-400K because they are located in the relative urban/rural decay of large cities/small towns. Some should be outright condemned are $ 170K, but the price was even higher, as much as $ 269K (05/2026) before someone bought it in 06/2026. I guess that will eventually be demolished for the land & new construction ? You can see it was built in 1998. How does a property get that bad in +/-30 years ? It wasn’t a fire, wasn’t storm damage.
That $ 170K purchase is for a property that’s going to easily end up approaching $ 1M when all is said & done. New Construction in that neighborhood is easily $ 500K. The lot itself, without a condemned dwelling on it just needs to be bulldozed to build the next McMansion. It’s like that hotel that was on US-1 that took forever to sell, racked up fines, took forever to be bulldozed for as long as Biden-Harris was around.
My God, read this Real Estate Industry BS of a spin for selling a concept ?
“Nestled at the end of a quiet cup-de-sac, this exceptional 2.34 acre property offers a rare opportunity to bring your vision to life in one of the area’s most desirable locations. Ideal for builders or investors seeking a premium home-sight with strong upside potential-preliminary architectural plans are already complete, saving valuable time and accelerating your path to return on investment. The expansive lot is private, beautifully positioned, and features a serene pond, creating the perfect setting for a custom estate. Imagine a stunning home surrounded by lush landscaping, with space for outdoor entertaining, a pool and peaceful gardens. Just a short drive to Fernandina Beach and close to shopping, dining, and daily conveniences, this property offers the perfect blend of tranquility and accessibility.”
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/95344-Marc-Anthony-Rd-Fernandina-Beach-FL-32034/45945696_zpid/
The reality of what we see vs the fantasy of selling Congressionals passing landmark legislation is delusional for giving the Swamp in DC that much credit. I wouldn’t have signed off if I was Trump either. Have my good name & face as the poster boy POTUS for what clearly is fraud & abuse, a con job of legoslation. How far removed is DeSantis Property Tax legislation from being the Bait & Switch lies we’ve come to expect of every politician & CEO/BoD on planet Earth ?
I’m not being negative, this comment is balls & strikes, we all have eyes, we can see it clearly. Some of these properties are simply the bridge to sell another in the Everglades that doesn’t exist. The era of Bidenomics that was ushered in, drop $ 1M to rebuild an inflated $ 2M property. Unaffordable at it’s finest, the very definition. Who would drop their life’s savings into that shell game ? Do we have any other choice after Biden-Harris.
Deborah Coffey says
Not all of our eyes see what you do. We’ve read the entire bill and we are very hopeful that it will make a good difference for our younger generation. We think you might be just a bit too cynical…maybe because of your BDS.
Laurel says
Jimbo, can you not make a comment without Biden-Harris? You voted for a felon.
You and I see things differently. I looked at the house on Zillow, and if I was a young person, I’d run to buy it! I saw a two story house, on a large lot with a pond, that someone already started fixing up.
I’d make it livable, get a CO, and restore it over time. That home, restored, with be very valuable.
john stove says
Watch…..if this works and helps…..Trump will take full credit for getting it passed…..standard Republican playbook. Let others do the work and then take the credit.
JimboXYZ says
Work ? Like 2021-present has ? I do admire your optimism. his is nothing more than the same higher interest rates & pots of money to process unaffordable mortgages, flip properties, real estate commissions, higher insurance premiums of an inflation economy that has to crash harder than W Bush => Obama era bailout & economic collapse. Nobody with an economics degree from an Ivy League College/University, the self proclaimed economics gurus that have brought the USA into the hyper fraud & abuse era.
We did it their way, mostly forced & involuntarily, the unaffordable crisis across the board still persist and new levels of unaffordability & inflation. Right now, each of us are forced to pay ridiculous utility bills for 28K homes that aren’t even built. We’re paying for STF expansion & growth for unaffordable homes that haven’t even been built yet. Look at Alfinville, FL at Royal Palms Parkway 7 Town Center Parkway. There isn’t an affordable property on that plot of land next to I-95. Old King’s Road South of FL-100 toward Halifax Plantation or even Seminole Woods Parkway ? Same thing going on over there for that misery of putting 10 gallons of poop in a 5 gallon bucket of infrastructure, which is becoming 20 gallons of poop in that same 5 gallon bucket. And the solution seems to be adding a turn lane on Belle Terre at intersections that have no traffic lights.
I’m not being negative here, this is the last 5-6 years of actuals vs the Vision of 2050 concept that was crammed down our throats. You are right about 1 thing, there will be no shortage of those taking credit, more as spinning BS than anything/something actually working from the DC Swamp. I can understand why Property Taxes being relatively eliminated/reduced/abolished in part is out there. Eliminate their funding source and they have to find another way to fund their fraud & abuse, to get back to stealing anything anyone set aside for when society dumps them from the labor pool. That’s just one of the plays in the grand scheme of any playbooks.