U.S. House defies Senate, weakens private equity restrictions in housing bill

Despite the White House publicly urging the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to approve the U.S. Senate's bipartisan housing bill, House lawmakers have put forth their own version of the bill that strips provisions reining in private equity. The House's amendment to the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which the chamber could vote on as soon as Wednesday, dilutes provisions targeting large institutional investors that buy up single-family homes to turn them into permanent rentals. House lawmakers kept the Senate's provision prohibiting large institutional investors – defined as entities that own more than 350 housing units – from purchasing single-family homes for the next 15 years. Both bill versions exempt manufactured housing, multifamily homes, and build-to-rent properties from the ban. But they threw out a provision mandating that institutional investors sell rental homes they build to individuals within seven years of construction, a measure that supporters say would expand the number of homes on the market and help drive down prices. The House-revised version also allows private equity to buy up housing that is supported with Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and other rent-restricting affordable housing programs. House lawmakers backing the amendment bill claim it is an "improvement" to the Senate-passed version, arguing that forcing institutional investors to eventually sell properties could displace renters, disrupt markets and inhibit growth. "Back in the 2008 financial crisis, I remember many banks, including my own bank, that had hundreds of unfinished houses that buyers had walked away from, and how great it would have been to have an institutional buyer come in and help clean up some of that troubled credit," House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., said on CNBC. "So we know that, both in troubled markets and in growing markets like build-to-rent, institutional investors provide a lot of that capital." Private investors own more than 15 million properties, which includes apartment units, in the U.S, according to a recent analysis by BatchData. Nearly 27% of all home sales in the first quarter of 2025 went to investors, both corporate and individual. Another notable change the House amendment includes is a revision to the four-year Central Bank Digital Currency ban. Unlike the broad ban imposed by the Senate, the House version would allow the Federal Reserve to issue a digital currency off-limits to the general public but available to financial institutions and the federal government. House lawmakers also reinserted a swath of deregulatory community banking provisions aimed at making it easier for community banks to finance single-family housing construction. If the amended bill passes the House, it faces an uncertain reception in the Senate, where many Republicans in particular are miffed at the lower chamber's changes. Only 10 U.S. senators voted against the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act when it passed in March. Each of those 10 senators received tens and sometimes thousands of dollars in 2024 campaign donations from large institutional investors, as The Center Square exclusively reported.