07/15/2026
Congress Passes the Most Significant Housing Bill in a Generation.
After months of negotiation between the House and Senate, Congress has passed a sweeping, bipartisan housing package that combines the House's Housing for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 6644) with the Senate's ROAD to Housing Act into a single final bill: the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. The Senate passed the measure 85-5 on June 22, followed by the House at 358-32 on June 23. The bill became law on July 11, without the President's signature, after the 10-day constitutional window for action passed while Congress remained in session.
For AREAA and the AANHPI communities we serve, this is a moment worth paying attention to. It is the largest federal housing bill since the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act of 1990, and while it does not solve the affordability crisis on its own, it reshapes several of the levers that matter most to first-generation buyers, multigenerational households, and the small businesses and agents who serve them.
What's in the Bill:
Appraisal reform. The Act contains several provisions designed to strengthen the appraisal profession, modernize oversight, and expand pathways into appraisal practice.The legislation directs federal housing and financial regulators, including HUD, FHFA, USDA, and VA, to establish consistent standards and procedures for Reconsiderations of Value (ROVs) across the mortgage industry. The goal is to ensure that consumers have a clear, transparent, and standardized process for raising concerns about an appraisal, including potential factual inaccuracies, omissions, or other issues that may have affected the valuation conclusion. In other words, the act codifies a consumer’s right to appeal an appraisal that they believe undervalues their home.
Housing counseling and financial literacy. The Act strengthens HUD's authority to oversee housing counseling agencies and counselors, including new training requirements. This is a direct win for the community-based counseling networks that so many AANHPI first-time buyers rely on to navigate financing, credit building, and down payment planning.
Manufactured and modular housing. The bill eliminates the permanent chassis requirement for manufactured homes and gives HUD primary authority over energy-efficiency standards for manufactured housing, alongside new studies on modular production barriers. For many AANHPI families, manufactured and modular housing represent a meaningful, lower-cost path to ownership, and this provision should help expand that supply.
Community development bank investment. Public-welfare investment caps for community development banks rise to 20%, opening up more local capital for affordable housing financing, a resource that community development financial institutions serving AANHPI neighborhoods have long said is too constrained.
Environmental review streamlining. The Act expands categorical exclusions for housing projects under NEPA and allows HUD to delegate certain environmental reviews to states, tribes, and localities, aimed at cutting the regulatory delays that inflate construction costs and slow new supply.
Opportunity zones and CDBG flexibility. HUD can now prioritize competitive housing grants for projects in Opportunity Zones, and Community Development Block Grant funds can be used directly for new affordable housing construction, both tools that many of our members' communities have asked for.
Limits on institutional investors. The final bill restricts large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes, with defined exceptions for build-to-rent development. Industry analysts note this provision is more symbolic than structural, since institutional buyers represent a small share of the single-family market, but it reflects the bipartisan appetite to be seen addressing affordability head-on.
Thanks AREAA for sharing!
