House Republicans Strip Bipartisan Bill on Housing Affordability From Must-Pass Legislation

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have removed a bipartisan bill aimed at tackling the housing affordability crisis from a key piece of "must-pass" legislation, throwing the future of the reform effort into doubt.

In October, the Senate passed the ROAD to Housing Act as part of its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, the $924.7 billion defense spending bill for fiscal year 2026.

The housing legislation had bipartisan support in the Senate, with backing from Republican Sen. Tim Scott and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and had passed out of the Senate Banking Committee in a unanimous 24-0 vote in July.

However, the House text of the NDAA released this week stripped out the housing provisions, with House Republicans saying they preferred to pursue a stand-alone bill that reflects the lower chamber's preferences.

The move came after Scott, the Republican chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, urged his House colleagues to include the housing measures in the crucial defense bill.

“Families across the country are being crushed by soaring housing costs, and Washington cannot continue to sit on the sidelines," Scott said in a statement last week. "This is a bipartisan, common-sense package that deserves to cross the finish line.”

Warren, the Democratic ranking member of the Banking Committee, slammed the House maneuver in her own statement, arguing it stood in contrast to President Donald Trump's vows to tackle the housing affordability crisis.

“Donald Trump claims he wants to build more housing and lower housing costs, but his allies in the House just axed a bipartisan bill that unanimously passed the Senate to do just that," Warren said. "If House Republicans continue to block legislation to cut housing costs in 2026, then Democrats will pass it ourselves when we take back Congress."

House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill, an Arkansas Republican, said that the Senate housing bill did not match his own proposal to tackle housing costs, and that he wanted to pursue a stand-alone bill in order to hammer out the differences.

“I share the president’s goals of expanding Americans’ access to housing that fits their needs by reducing regulatory roadblocks to development, increasing housing supply and choice, and strengthening accountability," Hill said. "Next year, we look forward to working with our Senate colleagues to send a bill to the president’s desk that reflects the views of both chambers and leads to more affordable choices for America’s homeowners and renters.”

Hill said that the House Financial Services Committee will begin working on stand-alone housing legislation as soon as this month.

In a statement to Realtor.com®, National Association of Home Builders Chairman Buddy Hughes called on the House and Senate to work together to pass a major housing package in early 2026 that addresses the nation’s critical lack of housing supply.

"To help stimulate construction of sorely needed housing, leaders in both chambers of Congress need to agree on a bipartisan bill that improves zoning and land-use policies, single-family housing, multifamily housing, rural housing, and our aging housing stock," said Hughes. "Reducing obstacles to help builders build more attainable, affordable housing is the best solution to help ease the nation’s housing affordability crisis."

Shannon McGahn, an executive vice president and chief advocacy officer at the National Association of Realtors®, says that while the ROAD to Housing package did not make it into the final NDAA, the group remains optimistic.

"NAR supports a bipartisan, bicameral housing package, whatever form that ultimately takes," says McGhan. "Just last week we testified before the House Financial Services Committee on more than 40 bills aimed at improving housing affordability, increasing  and unlocking existing supply, and expanding access to capital for buyers."

"We stand ready to assist Congress in any way needed to move this effort forward, and we strongly urge lawmakers to continue working together to keep the American Dream of homeownership within reach for families across this country," McGhan added.

Notable provisions of the ROAD to Housing Act

The Senate housing measure had contained provisions to boost the nation's housing supply, improve housing affordability, and increase oversight and efficiency of federal regulators and housing programs.

One notable part of the bill, Section 203, called for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to develop a "best practices" framework for local zoning and land use policies, which could be copied and implemented by local jurisdictions at their discretion.

This is significant because zoning rules vary widely among different jurisdictions, and overly restrictive zoning rules are often cited by builders as a key impediment to new housing construction.

At a minimum, having a national template for zoning laws would give pro-housing local politicians more ammunition to oppose cumbersome rules in their own jurisdictions, by giving them federal guidelines to point to, says Realtor.com Senior Economist Joel Berner.

"Creating a set of standards for zoning could be helpful to bring attention to the issues facing many local markets, but the effectiveness of policy changes will ultimately come down to municipalities," says Berner.

Berner also highlights Sections 207 and 208 as potentially impactful, as they call for cutting red tape around federal environmental review procedures and empowering states, local governments, and
Indian tribes to streamline their own review procedures.

"The big challenge for legislation like this is that the decision-making bodies that determine housing policy are primarily local, so it's difficult to have top-down types of changes," says Berner.