- Key insight: The Senate passed housing legislation by a wide bipartisan margin, but the House is less likely to do so.
- What’s at stake: The Mortgage Bankers Association has complained that a “drafting error” in a section of the bill prohibiting investment companies from buying single-family homes would reduce the construction of multifamily housing.
- Forward look: The bill now goes to the House, where it could be taken up by a conference committee to iron out a final version or be subject to additional amendments — a prospect that could bog down the bill’s passage.
WASHINGTON — The Senate passed a bipartisan housing package Thursday by an 89 to 10 margin, but the legislation’s future remains murky as it heads to the House.
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While the vote passed by a comfortable margin, it faces uncertainty in the House. House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., wants more of his legislation’s priorities, specifically around
The fastest and least complicated way for the bill to become law would be through a conference committee between the two chambers. That swifter means of passage would be preferable to proponents of the bill, since the midterm elections and pending retirement of several lawmakers leaves little time to move legislation.
Barring that, the bill will go through a laborious amendment process, which could reshape the legislation in critical ways as more competing interests weigh in.
“It is critical we get the details right and mitigate some of the concerns raised by House members with the Senate bill,” Hill said in a statement. “I hope the work Senator Scott and I have done together can eventually become law, and I look forward to working with all parties to achieve a bicameral success that will bring down the cost of housing and benefit the American people.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., one of the two main cosponsors of the Senate legislation along with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., suggested that she expects the House to vote on the legislation as is, rather than opening it up to significant changes.
“House Republicans should immediately take up this bill and pass it,” Warren said after the vote. “If they do not, they will have to explain to families across the country in November why they refused to lower the cost of housing.”
Several housing groups, including the Mortgage Bankers Association, raised concerns with amendments that Warren and Scott added to the bill after it passed out of the Senate Banking Committee, saying that the changes “could produce unintended consequences and reduce housing supply.”
“Drafting errors in the Federal Housing Administration multifamily loan limit section could unintentionally reduce loan limits and constrain capital for new rental housing development, while restrictions on institutional investment in single-family housing could limit financing for build-for- and built-to-rent housing communities,” MBA said.
It’s an issue that’s likely to be taken up by the House. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, long seen as a housing expert in the Senate, brought up the idea in remarks before the vote.
“This idea that it is virtuous to try to get people into single family homes with a mortgage, but somehow, there’s something nefarious about providing rental housing to people who are not in possession of a down payment — it’s just not.” he said. “If you don’t have a down payment, you don’t have a down payment, and we have decided, for no particular reason other than what I think is a drafting error, to demonize people who want to build rental housing.”