House Republicans are moving this week to approve a revised version of the Senate’s sweeping housing package while stripping out one of its most controversial provisions — a forced-sale requirement targeting large institutional single-family landlords — setting up a direct clash with Senate leaders and threatening one of Washington’s largest bipartisan housing efforts in years.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill (R-Ark.) and Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) are preparing the amended legislation for a fast-track vote under suspension of the rules before lawmakers leave Washington for Memorial Day recess. That procedure requires a two-thirds majority, leaving little room for defections from either party.
The dispute centers on the Senate-passed version of the “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” which cleared the upper chamber in March by an overwhelming 89-10 margin after months of bipartisan negotiations led by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
President Donald Trump publicly endorsed the Senate version earlier this month, calling housing affordability a national crisis and praising Scott and Moreno for advancing restrictions aimed at institutional ownership of single-family homes.
But the House’s revised text released May 14 removes the provision that had triggered alarm across the single-family rental industry and among large homebuilders.
Under the original Senate language, institutional investors owning at least 350 single-family homes would have been required to sell newly acquired build-to-rent properties to individual buyers within seven years. Renters would have received a right of first refusal and a 30-day exclusive purchase window before homes could be sold elsewhere. Violations carried civil penalties of up to $1 million per property or triple the home’s purchase price.
The House rewrite eliminates the forced-sale requirement entirely and explicitly states that no institutional landlord would be required to divest homes acquired either before or after the law’s enactment.
The rollback immediately won support from builders, multifamily developers, and housing lenders who argued the Senate version had effectively frozen financing for build-to-rent projects nationwide.
The National Association of Home Builders, the National Multifamily Housing Council, and the Community Home Lenders of America all backed the House changes within hours of release.
NAHB Chairman Bill Owens said the revisions restore certainty needed for developers to continue building rental inventory during a nationwide housing shortage. Sharon Wilson Geno, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council, said lawmakers had recognized that the original language threatened the long-term economics of the build-to-rent sector.
Industry groups say financing activity slowed sharply after the Senate approved its original bill in March because investors feared mandatory liquidation timelines would undermine long-duration rental business models.
But the House revisions have triggered growing resistance inside the Senate.
Warren has warned publicly that removing the investor restrictions could “kill the bill” entirely and accused House Republicans of watering down a key affordability measure that even Trump had endorsed. Senate Republicans involved in the negotiations are also signaling frustration that the House is reopening a package many lawmakers believed had already reached final compromise.
One senior Senate Republican aide told reporters the House rewrite risks collapsing the bipartisan coalition that delivered nearly 90 Senate votes, potentially pushing support below the 60-vote threshold needed to survive another Senate filibuster fight.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, described widespread frustration among Senate Republicans who view the House revisions as a unilateral rewrite of carefully negotiated legislation.
The politics inside the House remain complicated as well.
Because the bill is moving under suspension of the rules, leadership needs broad bipartisan backing. Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), have already raised objections tied to separate provisions involving a temporary Federal Reserve central bank digital currency ban and broader concerns over federal involvement in private housing markets.
At the same time, House Republicans argue the Senate drifted too far from the original supply-side housing framework approved overwhelmingly by the lower chamber earlier this year.
Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.), chairman of the Main Street Caucus, defended the revisions by noting the House’s original “Housing for the 21st Century Act” passed 390-9 before Senate negotiators added what some House members viewed as more aggressive market intervention measures.
Despite the investor fight, much of the broader housing package remains intact.
The House version still expands the public welfare investment cap for banks investing in affordable housing from 15% to 20% of risk-adjusted capital, a provision many housing lenders consider one of the bill’s most important supply-side reforms.
The legislation also streamlines HUD environmental reviews, modernizes manufactured housing standards, preserves rural rental units tied to expiring USDA mortgage programs, creates a new “Moving to Work” housing cohort, and speeds up Housing Choice Voucher inspection timelines.
Housing advocates say the package still represents one of the most significant federal housing efforts in decades even without the forced-sale language.
The timeline now adds pressure to both chambers.
If the House passes the amended bill this week, the legislation returns to the Senate, where Thune and Senate leaders must decide whether to accept the House revisions, negotiate a conference committee, or attempt to force the original Senate version back through the lower chamber.
Republicans have increasingly framed the housing legislation as a cornerstone of their affordability agenda heading into the 2026 midterm elections. Failure to deliver the package after months of bicameral negotiations would eliminate one of the few major bipartisan domestic-policy achievements still moving through Congress this year.
For now, builders, lenders, and institutional landlords are lining up behind the House version.
The Senate lawmakers who wrote the original bill are not.
— JBizNews Desk
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