- Key insight: A bipartisan housing bill passed Congress with overwhelming margins in both chambers before President Donald Trump canceled a signing ceremony the morning it was to become law.
- What's at stake: The law reshapes manufactured and modular housing rules, restricts large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, and includes a handful of banking industry priorities like brokered deposit reforms.
- Forward look: Housing groups say the legislation is a good start, but other reforms — like tax tweaks and other changes to boost housing supply and activity — are still needed.
WASHINGTON — After months of negotiations and weeks of last-minute drama, the bipartisan housing bill became law at midnight.
The bill aims to cut red tape for housing construction funds, although analysts expect the impact on housing supply to be marginal in the short- to medium-term. It does make real changes in the manufactured housing industry, and it includes a number of
Among its changes on the housing front, the law eliminates the permanent chassis requirement for manufactured housing, gives the Department of Housing and Urban Development regulatory power over modular housing, bans institutional investors from buying more single-family rentals in some cases and creates a HUD program for mortgages less than $100,000.
The bill became law after President Donald Trump said Friday morning that he would
Trump's displeasure with the bill — or at least unwillingness to give it any affirmative blessing — is fairly recent, first coming to light when he
Both
Housing groups generally applauded the bill becoming law, although they said more work is yet to be done.
The Community Home Lenders of America said in a statement that Congress should next "move on to action on tax changes to make it easier to access the trillions of dollars in stocks and [individual retirement accounts] to use for a down payment on a home."
