Senate passes bill to lower housing costs and restrict Wall Street from buying homes

5 hours ago by MicroWave to c/politics

The bipartisan legislation was crafted in both chambers and must now pass the House. It seeks to build more homes and prevent large investors from out-bidding families.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Monday to pass a sweeping housing affordability bill aimed at lowering costs, putting Congress on the brink of a rare bipartisan victory in Donald Trump’s second term.

The vote was 85-5.

The legislation, which makes it easier to build homes and slaps limits on Wall Street investors from buying up houses, now goes to the House, which hopes to vote on it in the next few days. Then, it would go to Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

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aramis87 70 points 4 hours ago

That it's gotten this far with this many votes means that investment firms have already placed language into the bill that will let them continue to buy up houses by completing a few additional low-effort steps.

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unitedwithme 15 points 4 hours ago

Hah, I was about to comment that there's no doubt some fine print in there that does still allow a shell company to buy, so while the book looks great, the story is shit!

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cattywampas 6 points 3 hours ago

Is that actually true or are you just assuming this?

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obviouspornalt 5 points 2 hours ago

I'm lazy so I asked an llm to analyze the text of the bill. I am Jack's complete lack of surprise:

Short answer: Based on all available full‑text versions of H.R. 6644 (the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act), the bill does not contain any language that prevents institutional investors from using shell companies, LLC chains, or affiliated entities to evade the 350‑home ownership cap. There is no beneficial‑ownership look‑through, no aggregation rule, and no anti‑evasion clause anywhere in the statutory text.

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ParlimentOfDoom 2 points 2 hours ago

It seems this is mostly covered: controlling the financial manager or over 25% of the entity that controls the homes counts as the company owning the house. But those first level entities wouldn't be able to buy any more, any way.

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