House approves breakthrough housing bill in a win for investors

he U.S. House by an overwhelming vote of 396-13 approved a bipartisan housing affordability bill Wednesday that would limit major investors from purchasing single-family homes while allowing them to build additional housing units.

The measure is getting support from the White House after some last-minute changes struck a balance between the Senate version, which placed more restrictions on major investors owning homes, and the House version, which was seen as more friendly toward Wall Street.

The legislation won the support of the rental, construction and housing industries by removing a requirement in the Senate-passed bill that would have forced major investors — defined as those owning 350 units or more — to sell any units they built beyond the cap within a seven-year window.

The housing affordability bill has ping-ponged several times between the House and the Senate. Both chambers approved their own version of the bill with strong bipartisan support earlier this year, but several provisions — including the ones overseeing investors in the housing market — have led to inter-chamber disputes.

It’s not clear whether the revamped House bill will gain the needed 60 votes to pass in the Senate before advancing to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the committee overseeing housing, worked with the White House to get several provisions with Democratic support into the bill. And other senators voted against the bill in March because of concerns with the forced sale of build-to-rent homes, contending that would decrease housing supply.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters in response to a question from CNBC on Tuesday that when the House passes the bill, the Senate will “deal with it accordingly.”

Still, other senators said their original bill was right to target investors who build homes with the intention of renting, not selling, them.

The House “basically gutted President Trump’s principal priority, which is to make certain that young people have access to single-family homes to buy,” Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told CNBC in a hallway interview. He added that the requirement for investors to sell the homes they build was key to expanding homeownership.

BP take on this -

Interesting but what's to stop the big players from just creating multiple other companies and then just doing the same thing with them.

Company A reaches the limit. OK, then we have company B and company C, etc.

“We don’t want homes to be for rent"

So "someone" thinks the only way to have "affordable" housing is for everyone to be a homeowner, and nothing available for those who want to rent?

Some folks just don't want to - and/or don't have the knowledge/skills - to be homeowners. What're they supposed to do?

Makes me think of the long-pushed idea that "everybody" needs a college education. Um, no! Look at what that has done - people in ridiculous debt (that they don't pay back) while working jobs that don't need a degree. And too few people in jobs like building trades.

I just put a kid into an open apartment yesterday.

(Side note, the place came open on Tuesday and he took it on Tuesday but we finalized it all on Wednesday.)

I know this kid. Not great friends with the family, although his mother and my wife are good friends. He is the type that will most likely never own a home. It's just the way he is. He has a good job that is pretty safe. He could easily buy a house, and probably pay the same as he is for rent or a little more. But he does not want to own a home.

I have a few tenants like this. They either want to keep their options open for moving fast, don't want to deal with the little broken things that happen, or they have just decided that it is easier to rent for some other reason.