The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law without Trump's signature

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law at midnight on Saturday, July 11, without President Donald Trump's signature. He did not veto it. He let the constitutional clock run out.

Congress passed the bill on June 23 with bipartisan majorities in both chambers. House Speaker Mike Johnson presented it to the White House on June 29, which started the 10-day window (Sundays excluded) the Constitution gives a president to sign or veto. That window closed at 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday. Because Congress remained in session, the bill became law on its own.

Trump said in June he would not sign it until the Senate passed the SAVE America Act, a bill requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo identification to cast a ballot. He canceled a planned White House signing ceremony on June 24 and called the housing bill "of minor importance" on Truth Social. "To me, compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn," he told reporters. On Friday morning he posted that he would not sign "in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT." The SAVE America Act has stalled in the Senate, where it does not have the 60 votes to advance.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the housing bill on X as "one of the most significant pieces of housing legislation in American history."

What the law does

The bill, H.R. 6644, runs to more than 40 provisions written by members of both parties. The one drawing the most attention limits corporate purchases of houses.

The law bars a "large institutional investor" from buying single-family homes, with exceptions. It defines that investor as a for-profit entity with investment control of 350 or more single-family homes, counting control held through ownership, general partner or managing member status, or an investment manager or adviser role. A "single-family home" is a structure with two or fewer dwelling units meant for one household, and manufactured homes are excluded from the definition.

According to an analysis by the law firm Morgan Lewis, the restriction applies to purchases made from enactment forward and does not require any investor to sell homes it already owned. The exceptions are wide enough to matter: an institutional investor can still buy newly constructed homes for a build-to-rent program, buy homes under a renovate-to-rent program if it spends at least 15 percent of the purchase price on improvements, buy through a rent-to-own program that reports rent payments to credit bureaus, or take homes through debt collection and repossession. The Treasury secretary, working with the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Housing Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission, writes the implementing rules.

House Republicans cut a piece of the ban that would have required build-to-rent developers to sell those homes off after seven years, NPR reported.

Other provisions in the package:

• Manufactured housing: the law drops the requirement that manufactured homes sit on a permanent steel chassis. NPR reported that housing policy experts estimate the change saves $5,000 to $10,000 per home and makes designs like a second story easier to build.
• Permitting: developers can skip an environmental review for a house built between two structures that already went through one.
• Pattern books: a new grant program pays communities to adopt preapproved housing designs that need fewer approvals to build.
• Funding: the law adds no new money. It steers existing federal housing funds toward communities that permit more construction.
• Central bank digital currency: Congress attached a ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a CBDC. That prohibition sunsets on December 31, 2030.

What it does not do

The law does not touch local zoning, which is where most decisions about what gets built are made. It does not set mortgage rates. Rates on a 30-year fixed mortgage are running around 6.5 percent. And it does not force anyone to build: homebuilders decide that on their own, and the National Association of Home Builders index has shown builders pessimistic about market conditions for about three years.

The size of the investor cap is also contested. Large institutional investors own roughly 3 percent of the single-family rental market nationally, though their share is far higher in some metro areas. Freddie Mac researchers have found private equity is a small driver of the national housing shortage, since those buyers tend to purchase cheap homes that need repair.

The backdrop is price. The median existing home sold for $440,600 in June, according to the National Association of Realtors.