WASHINGTON — Congress is on the cusp of writing the most transformative housing law in a generation, after the Senate advanced bipartisan legislation to expand the nation’s residential stock, ease regulations and lower costs.
In an 89-10 vote Thursday, the Senate passed a bill that had cleared the House on Feb. 9. That chamber cast overwhelming support, with 390 yes votes and 9 votes against.
“This package sends a message that we can still work together and solve hard problems facing Americans,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said before passage. Kim and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) voted for the bill, though Booker voted “present” during earlier procedural votes. Some provisions of Kim’s were folded in the bill, including measures to speed up environmental reviews and permitting.
Every New Jersey lawmaker but Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th) voted for the House legislation last month. Kean did not vote and missed another vote that day on a different bill. His chief of staff did not respond to a request for comment from NJ Spotlight News.
Despite broad support, the legislation faces hurdles from President Donald Trump, who has dismissed increases in daily living expenses as a fabricated political ploy against him. Trump on Sunday vowed not to sign any legislation until Congress passes a bill to restrict voting access sharply, and from a hard-right bloc of House Republicans.
‘Drive down prices’
The voting access bill that Trump wants to enact, pending in the Senate, would make it more difficult to register and could complicate sign-ups for college students and women who use their married surnames. It would also require states to hand over their voter registration databases.
Before the housing bill could become law, though, it would have to clear the House again, or advance through a conference committee, a temporary and unusual method used to resolve differences on legislation between the chambers.
The bill is a rare bipartisan bubble of legislative productivity during a tense election year.
“This bill offers real solutions that will unlock new home construction, drive down prices, and increase the supply of affordable homes,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota who controls the Senate agenda.
The national median house sale price spiked from about $317,000 before the COVID-19 pandemic before surging during the early years of the pandemic to about $442,000, according to Federal Reserve data, before plateauing.
Depending on the estimate, the U.S. is short 4 million to 7 million homes, driving rents, housing prices and homelessness to record levels.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition, an advocacy group, put the shortage at 7.2 million in a report published last week.
“If enacted into law, this bill would be the largest bipartisan housing supply bill in decades, helping streamline federal programs to ensure federal dollars reach communities more efficiently and effectively,” the group’s president and chief executive officer, Renee Willis, said to Sens. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
As the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate banking committee, the duo molded the Senate draft, which members debated this week.
“Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country,” Kim said from the Senate floor. “Yet despite this, Jersey has been one of the slowest states in the country to approve new housing construction.”
Cash-buyer caps
Under the legislation, institutional investors — including hedge funds, private equity firms and other corporate cash buyers — would be barred from owning more than 350 housing units. The legislation would allow investors to construct single-family homes purely as rental properties, then compel their sale within seven years.
A bill of Kim’s in the package would allow cities to use a popular form of federal funding called a community development block grant for housing construction.
Senators removed a section on community banking rules, upsetting members of the House Freedom Caucus, an arch-conservative group of lawmakers expected to oppose the Senate’s version.
Other sections incentivize construction near public transit stops, military veterans homeownership and modular housing, generally known as mobile homes.
The White House budget office said on March 2 that Trump would sign the bill, before the Senate amended it, if it reaches his desk.
In a December speech in Mount Pocono, Pa., Trump dismissed talk of economic affordability as a “hoax” that Democrats concocted against him.
