Congress overwhelmingly passed a large housing bill on Tuesday, one that includes a provision to restrict institutional investors from buying single-family homes.
The 21st Century Road to Housing Act passed the Senate Monday on a bipartisan 85-5 vote, after several housing-related bills cleared the upper chamber in recent weeks. The House later passed the bill in a 358-to-32 vote. Earlier versions of the bill regarding institutional home ownership cleared the Senate and House, but disagreements between the two chambers on how to handle President Donald Trump’s desired ban on institutional investors buying single-family homes had held up the legislation.
Trump was expected to swiftly sign the bill into law but cancelled the news conference and signing of the bill on Wednesday, stating he would wait “until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency,” in a social media post. The SAVE [Safeguard American Voter Eligibility] Act. would require voters to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship.
Latest (and Greatest?) Version
The Senate bill, passed on Monday, includes a provision banning investors from buying more single-family homes if they already own at least 350 properties, but unlike some previous versions, it exempts build-to-rent projects from the restrictions. It also does not require them to sell any homes purchased before the bill becomes law.
If an institutional investor violates a provision of the bill, it could be fined more than $1 million per violation or three times the purchase price of the property involved, whichever is greater, according to the legislation.
However, the latest bill did not include a stiffer penalty that was included in a previous Senate version—the removal of two major tax benefits—interest deductions and depreciation deductions—for any taxpayer that owns at least 50 single‑family residential rental properties, counted across all related entities.
According to a Government Accountability Office analysis of 2022 data, 32 institutional investors collectively owned 450,000 single-family homes, including almost 300,000 homes held by the five largest investors.
Overall, institutional investors owned about 2% of all single-family homes in the U.S. in 2022, the GAO found, but in Sun Belt markets, they owned as much as 25% of single-family rental housing.
According to a March 2026 analysis by Parcl Labs, only 140 investors exceeded the 350-home threshold. Those investors own approximately 530,000 single-family homes—about 0.59% of all U.S. single-family homes, the company estimated. Parcl Labs also found several southern states had the highest concentration of institutional home ownership.
It is unclear how much the institutional investor provision might move the housing affordability needle, as economists and housing experts typically argue more supply is required to drive down prices.
That said, the bill includes provisions to support efforts to increase the supply of single-family homes, such as Republican-sought deregulatory measures that were met with wage requirements by Democrats. For example, the bill would accelerate federal environmental assessments, streamline manufactured housing regulations and incentivize local governments to relax restrictive zoning ordinances.
Separately, the measure would also prohibit the U.S. Federal Reserve from developing a central bank digital currency until at least 2030.