The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a landmark housing bill, notching a rare bipartisan accomplishment ahead of the midterm elections and clearing the way for President Trump to sign the most significant piece of housing legislation in 36 years.
The bill’s passage, by a lopsided 358-to-32 vote, ended months of sparring between the House and the Senate over a sprawling measure that aims to tackle the housing crisis by boosting supply in a country facing an acute shortage of new homes. The Senate passed its version of the same bill Monday, by a vote of 85 to 5.
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With dozens of provisions, the 21st Century Road to Housing Act aims to touch communities across the country, addressing rural and urban needs as part of a strategy to eventually bring down housing costs. It loosens federal regulations, making it easier, faster and cheaper to build; eases lending rules; rewards communities that build; delivers aid to communities reeling from disasters; and, in a policy that proved to be one of the biggest flash points but was favored by Mr. Trump, sets new limits on the role institutional investors can play in the market.
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Chief among the sticking points was a provision to check institutional investors, which had been crafted in negotiations among White House officials, Senator Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican who leads the Banking Committee, and Ms. Warren.
The measure prohibits corporate entities from owning more than 350 existing single-family homes, although it does not require them to sell homes purchased before the measure became law. A stricter proposal that would have required investors to sell single-family homes built explicitly as rentals after seven years was dropped; it had prompted a backlash by home builders and affordable housing advocates, who feared it would discourage new home construction.
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The bill tackles the crisis from different angles. For example, manufactured homes, which are built in a factory and arrive at a site on a truck, will no longer have to be built on a steel chassis to meet federal standards, a change that could shave thousands of dollars of the cost of these homes, and expand the types of designs factories can build. The bill also loosens lending rules for these homes and provides grants to communities to repair existing ones, which are often cheaper and faster to build than stick-built homes.
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The bill also makes new construction of affordable housing eligible for certain federal grants; cuts requirements around environmental reviews to make it easier for communities to build faster; and offers funding for communities that are building housing to improve infrastructure.
And it loosens regulations overseeing community banks and makes it easier to get small mortgages of less than $100,000, an issue important in rural communities where housing costs are lower.
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