The House passed a sprawling housing bill on Wednesday aimed at tackling a major cost-of-living issue, bringing Congress a step closer to passing the most substantial housing legislation in a generation.
The package, the first major legislation in 36 years aimed at creating and bolstering housing programs, passed on a lopsided bipartisan vote, reflecting a rare area of election-year consensus in the otherwise deeply divided Congress. But its fate remained uncertain amid lingering disagreements among lawmakers over its details and as President Trump, who has not made housing a priority, has expressed only lukewarm support.
The legislation had been stalled for months as Republicans feuded among themselves about key provisions. Proponents reached a breakthrough this week when White House officials struck a closed-door agreement with House leaders over the president’s top priority in the debate: limiting the role that institutional investors play in the housing market.
A White House official who insisted on anonymity to discuss the private negotiations confirmed that those changes led Mr. Trump to support the measure. On Wednesday, the White House released a statement saying that the administration “strongly supports” passage of the bill and urged the Senate to take it up and pass it, requesting that the two chambers “resolve any remaining differences expeditiously.”
Republican leaders fast-tracked the measure through the House on Wednesday using a process that barred any changes, limited debate and required a two-thirds majority. The vote was 396 to 13, sending it back to the Senate, which passed a different version of the measure in March and still must approve the revisions made by the House.
Whether or how quickly that will happen remains unclear.
Gone from the House bill are several Senate priorities, including one that would permanently authorize grant funding for housing-related disaster assistance in communities; another that would reward communities that build more housing with grants; a proposal that would help communities maintain and upgrade manufactured housing; and new transparency rules for some loans for veterans. The House also added new community banking rules.
On Wednesday morning, Senators Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, and Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who lead the Banking Committee, released a joint statement throwing cold water on a final agreement.
“There’s still work to be done, and we are committed to continuing to work with the White House and our colleagues in the House on a housing bill that can pass the Senate and get to the president’s desk,” they said.
The bill’s fate may ultimately come down to the whims of Mr. Trump, who has been singularly focused on assuring that it puts restrictions on institutional investors, a priority he laid out in an executive order earlier this year.
“This has been years of work in the making and months of intensive work in this 119th Congress to find a path that improves accessibility on housing for the American people and affordability for the American people that could be a bicameral and bipartisan housing measure,” said Representative French Hill, Republican of Arkansas and the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, said on the House floor during debate on Tuesday.
The package, should it pass, would give both Republicans and Democrats, who are in a bitter midterm battle for control of Congress, a substantial victory to bring home to voters eager for financial relief at a time when polls have found the public has an increasingly dark view of the economy.
High housing costs are among Americans’ biggest concerns as they head to the ballot box in November. Home prices are up 50 percent since the start of the pandemic and rents remain high, too. Almost half of rental households — a record high — are cost burdened, meaning they spend a third of their income on housing costs. With inflation rising amid a war with Iran, the 30-year mortgage rate is around 6.5 percent, keeping the cost of home buying high.
What was once a coastal issue affecting cities in blue states like New York City and Los Angeles is now a national one, with rural and suburban communities in red districts — places like Boise, Idaho, and Lincoln, Neb. — facing a relentless housing crisis, exacerbated by high interest rates and a dearth of supply.
That provided a strong political incentive for Republicans to deliver housing relief, and prodded Democrats, who have made their vow to tackle cost-of-living issues the cornerstone of their midterm campaign pitch, to go along.
“It’s inconceivable that members of the House and Senate would want to go home and face constituents who are legitimately frustrated with housing affordability and not be able to tell them, ‘I got this bill passed,’” said David M. Dworkin, president of the National Housing Conference, a housing coalition.
The bill has been mired for months in a turf battle between the House and Senate, with Senate Republicans showing little appetite for negotiations after their version passed by a wide bipartisan margin and had the backing of the White House.
The House had passed its own housing bill in February by a margin of 309 to 9. But it balked at the idea that it would simply sign off on a Senate package that stripped out some major provisions, like new community banking rules, and added others, most notably the rule setting limits on institutional investors.
After a two-month standoff, Mr. Hill and Ms. Waters reached their own deal on proposed changes.
“We need comprehensive reforms at the federal, state and local levels and a commitment by everyone to get America building housing again,” Ms. Waters said during the floor debate on Tuesday.
One of the biggest changes was a substantial rewrite of the institutional investors provision. That provision had been created by Mr. Scott and Ms. Warren as well as the White House, according to Banking Committee aides.
The House agreement initially stripped out the Senate’s restriction on single family homes that were built exclusively as rentals, which required developers to sell the properties after seven years. That restriction met fierce resistance from home builders, housing groups and some legislators who argued it could make it more difficult to build when the country is in dire need of new housing. The House also proposed narrowing the definition of an investor, broadening exemptions and adding new penalties.
The revisions alienated both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. On Monday, Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, lashed out at the House bill, posting on social media, “It’s time we restore the American dream & ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes.”
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, also posted his opposition to the House measure, reposting Mr. Moreno’s comments.
Ms. Warren lobbied House Democrats to oppose the changes, according to people close to the talks, and the White House remained quiet as negotiators waited to see which way Mr. Trump would swing.
After several days of closed-door talks including Speaker Mike Johnson and White House officials, the House backed down, restoring much of the Senate’s original institutional investor provision. But the time limit on how long investors can own homes built as rentals was removed, satisfying housing groups and home builders.
