Trump cancels signing of largest housing affordability bill in a generation

By Samantha Delouya, CNN

(CNN) — This week, Congress celebrated a rare bipartisan victory after overwhelmingly passing the largest housing affordability bill in a generation. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump was set to sign it into law.

But there was a change of plans.

Less than two hours before the planned signing, Trump posted on social media: “Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby canceled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency,” referring to a bill that would tighten ID requirements to vote in US elections.

Trump has made it clear that the SAVE America Act takes priority over the housing affordability bill, called the “21st Century Road to Housing Act.”

The housing bill aims to tackle America’s affordability crisis primarily through encouraging more housing supply. The bill also includes a first-of-its-kind limit on private equity by prohibiting large investors from buying single-family homes.

Even if Trump refuses to sign the bill, it will still become law within 10 days while Congress is in session, so long as Trump doesn’t veto it.

The bill reflects a growing recognition in Congress, despite Trump’s priorities, that the high cost of living is squeezing Americans and putting homeownership, long a cornerstone of the American dream, increasingly out of reach.

In a separate social media post, Trump lamented the bill as “The Elizabeth ‘Pochahontas’ Warren centric housing bill, which is of minor importance compared to lower interest rates… pales in comparison to passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, responded to Trump on CNBC on Wednesday, saying that canceling the signing “doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s complete indifference to the cost squeeze on American families and to genuine efforts to do something about it. You know, he could be over here trying to claim the victory lap, and instead, he’s saying, no, he doesn’t want anything to do with it,” Warren said.

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted to pass the bill, just one day after the Senate approved it.

“The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act passing both chambers is a milestone not just for housing policy, but for what’s possible when Congress works together,” said Dennis Shea, executive vice president for the Center for Housing Policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “For the families who’ve been priced out, squeezed out, or left behind by a broken housing market, this is a meaningful step — and it’s long overdue.”

Here’s what to know about the housing affordability bill and how it could affect you:

Tapping into frustration with private equity

In the years since the 2008 financial crisis, homebuilding has lagged, creating a housing shortage that has pushed prices higher as demand far outstrips supply across much of the country.

The idea behind the bill, led by Republican Tim Scott and Warren in the Senate, and Republican French Hill and Democrat Maxine Waters in the House, was to tackle that housing shortage directly.

“Young people today … they’re delaying marriage, they’re delaying having kids, they’re delaying putting down roots,” Scott said on the Senate floor Monday ahead of the bill’s passage. “Not because they lack ambition but because housing prices are too darn high and housing supply too low.”

The bill, and its 47 housing supply provisions, were the result of months of back and forth between the House and Senate, with both chambers passing initial iterations of the bill earlier this year.

But America’s housing affordability woes are not the result of one single incident, or decision. Instead, a collection of actions (or inactions), local opposition, underbuilding and increased demand have fueled the crisis.

The bill reflects the piecemeal nature of the problem, focusing on ways to increase the supply of housing, fixing up existing homes that have fallen into disrepair and encouraging local governments to ease permitting restrictions that add time and costs to building. The bill also includes a ban on large institutional investors buying up more than 350 single-family homes – a provision added after Trump signed an executive order on the subject in January.

For Americans shopping for a home this year, the bill may not offer immediate relief, and housing advocates have acknowledged that although the bill is a bipartisan victory, it does not go far enough to address a housing market that has become the most unaffordable in a generation.

Still, in an interview with CNN, Warren said that, if implemented efficiently, the bill can chip away at the housing shortage.

“Over time, [Americans] should notice there’s more housing available, and that’s true for urban areas and rural areas, true for renters and for buyers,” Warren said of the bill.

A win for manufactured housing

The bill represents a major victory for manufactured homes, which are built in factories and are typically faster and cheaper to produce than traditional houses built on-site.

For the last five decades, manufactured homes have been required by federal law to be built on a permanent chassis, a base with wheels that allows them to be moved, similar to classic mobile homes. In practice, though, most manufactured homes never move once they reach their destination.

The requirement to add wheels increases costs and can limit where these homes are allowed, due to zoning restrictions, often confining them to mobile home parks. The new housing law would eliminate the chassis requirement, which could reduce the cost of each manufactured home by $5,000 to $10,000, according to an estimate by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The bill also directs regulators to ensure that modular homes, another off-site building method, don’t face greater financing barriers than traditionally built homes, making it easier for homebuyers to secure loans.

An attempt to ease zoning and permitting rules

Many housing experts point to local zoning and red tape as the root of the slowdown in homebuilding. That makes it difficult for the federal government to intervene, since local governments make their own rules.

But if land-use regulations were relaxed, an extra 2.5 million housing units could be added to the United States in the next decade, according to a 2025 report from Goldman Sachs.

The bill includes provisions to encourage states and local governments to adopt land use and zoning policies that are more supportive of housing development.

“For the first time ever, this bill creates federal incentives for local communities to build more housing,” Warren said to CNN. “If a community will authorize and get more building started, they can apply for additional federal money to help cover the costs of things like a new elementary school or a sewage treatment plant and use that money to build infrastructure or build even more housing.”

The bill also offers money to local governments to develop pre-approved housing designs, or pattern books, which would help speed up local construction approvals.

Repairing aging homes

Due to the two-decade-long decline in new construction, the country’s housing stock is older than ever. The recent bout of inflation, along with Trump’s aggressive slew of tariffs and an overall increase in the cost of construction labor, have made fixing up homes that fall into disrepair a costly project for many Americans.

The bill would authorize a pilot program to offer grants and forgivable loans to address home repair needs and health hazards. It would also make it easier to convert older office buildings, especially the ones that have become vacant in the age of increasingly remote and hybrid work, into apartment buildings.

More to come?

While the bill represents a bipartisan win for housing, its scope is limited, said Jaret Seiberg, managing director at TD Cowen.

“It does not address labor shortages. And it does not provide funding improvements that could encourage construction of lower-cost single-family units,” Seiberg wrote in a note to clients last week.

Seiberg said the bill shows that both parties realize that housing affordability is a problem, potentially opening the door to more legislation next year.

Warren told CNN she’s already working on a Road to Housing part two.

“Building costs are still high. There’s more we can do. This bill is nearly 50 provisions, but the problem is even bigger,” the Massachusetts Democrat said. “The bill is an important first step, because it acknowledges for the first time that the federal government has an important role to play in bringing down the cost of housing.”

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