The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to enact the ROAD to Housing Act, legislation that industry groups applauded when it was first introduced. However, the measure now contains a provision targeting build-to-rent (BTR) investment by investors that already own more than 350 units, and the National Multifamily Housing Council and National Apartment Association are calling for the provision to be omitted from the final legislation.
In a statement NMHC President Sharon Wilson Géno and NAA President and CEO Bob Pinnegar said, “The promise of this overwhelmingly pro-housing legislation is now undermined by the eleventh-hour addition of a provision that will have an immediate chilling effect on housing supply, affordability and investment.
“The provision requiring disposition of Build-to-Rent (BTR) communities as individual units to homebuyers is plainly not feasible,” they continued. “It would stall new communities from being built and divert investment away from an important affordable housing option for renters and their families.”
Similarly, the National Association of Home Builders, Mortgage Bankers Association and National Housing Conference said in a statement Thursday that the disposition requirement “would take hundreds of thousands of housing units off the market over the next decade, many of which would serve lower- and middle-income households.”
Neither the ROAD to Housing Act nor the Housing for the 21st Century Act, which passed the House, originally contained language curtailing BTR investment. It was added to the Senate bill after President Trump indicated he wouldn’t sign the legislation without it.
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