Financial Services Committee Clears Bipartisan Housing for the 21st Century Act
Washington,
December 17, 2025
The House Committee on Financial Services, led by Rep. French Hill (AR-02), today overwhelmingly advanced the bipartisan Housing for the 21st Century Act. The bill, introduced by Chairman Hill, Ranking Member Maxine Waters (CA-43), Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance Chair Mike Flood (NE-01), and Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance Ranking Member Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05), will streamline housing development and affordability by updating outdated programs, removing regulatory roadblocks, and increasing local flexibility. Click here for a one-pager. Ahead of today’s markup, Chairman Hill joined Bloomberg Surveillance to discuss the Housing for the 21st Century Act. Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance Chairman Flood stated, “This housing affordability challenge affects everyone, from young people saving up to buy their first home, to middle class workers trying just to make the rent. In other words, housing costs have been too high across our country for the last several years, and the culprit is a lack of affordable housing supply. … This bill, I think, is historic and bipartisan product that will get to the root of the housing affordability challenges our country has experienced for the last several years.”
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Dan Meuser (PA-09) added, “Today, it costs roughly $100,000 before the shovel hits the dirt, and home builders cannot economically build a new home for, in many cases, less than $250,000. By eliminating duplicative reviews and fixing outdated programs, this legislation directly lowers those costs. This bill modernizes outdated housing laws by improving coordination between HUD and USDA programs and updating FHA multifamily loan limits so they reflect today’s construction costs. It also improves the usability of core community development programs like HOME and CDBG, enabling local governments to deploy resources to produce housing instead of getting caught up in the blue tape."
Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence Chairman Bryan Steil (WI-01) noted, “In Southeast Wisconsin, we could look over the past eight years, the average housing cost has gone up from roughly $172,000 for a single-family home to about $390,000. That is a huge impact on your monthly mortgage cost. And in this committee, we're coming together to say, ‘how do we reduce the cost for families to be able to get into a home?’ The number one thing we can do is get the federal government out of the way, empower local decision makers, cut the red tape and reduce the costs.”
Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions Chairman Warren Davidson (OH-08) stated, “So now, we've got legislation that makes it clear that HUD regulates manufactured housing. We've got Congressman Rose's bill that will lower the cost by making it so you don't have to have a permanent chassis. This increases flexibility for the kinds of manufactured housing and types of units that can be sold in the marketplace and still be great products and great options for lots of families. It does things that let banks with strong balance sheets — Section 303 … get the ability to do more public welfare housing with their own balance sheets. So, you're letting private capital go to work in the marketplace. And so, I think there's a host of reforms here that are pro-market.”
Subcommittee on Housing & Insurance Vice Chair Monica De La Cruz (TX-15) added, “Our country has an affordable housing crisis, driven by decades of underdevelopment that has left us over 5 million housing units short. In my community in South Texas, purchasing a home feels out of reach for many. The growth in home prices continues to outpace wages, and housing costs continue to be the single largest expense many families have each month.”
Rep. John Rose (TN-06) noted, “My legislation, which is included in today's bipartisan housing package, will remove a federal chassis requirement that has served to unnecessarily raise the price of manufactured housing. Since 1974, federal law has required that manufactured homes include a permanently installed chassis that allows them to be moved even after initial installation. This has significantly reduced the ability of young and low-income families to buy their own homes. Removing the permanent chassis requirement for manufactured homes will lower construction costs, unlock modern design flexibility, and open far more locations for quality, affordable housing.”
Rep. Marlin Stutzman (IN-03) added, “I want to recognize that this bill accomplishes something that very few pieces of legislation can these days in Washington. This package does not spend a dime of taxpayers’ money. Instead, it advances bipartisan, common-sense reforms that get big government out of the way of building new housing. And we all know there is great demand for new housing across the country.”
Rep. Troy Downing (MT-02) stated, “Montana saw a nearly 90% increase in the median home value just over the last five-year period. According to the National Association of Home Builders, every $1,000 increase in building a home, in the cost of a new home, prices 106,000 households out of the market. I'm excited about this bipartisan legislation that targets what I strongly believe is the root cause of the lack of affordable housing — that's overregulation.”
Rep. Tim Moore (NC-14) added, “Rather than imposing new federal mandates, this bill takes a smarter approach. It removes unnecessary barriers to housing production and gives states and local governments greater flexibility to expand supply in ways that reflect local needs. The Housing for the 21st Century Act directly addresses regulatory inefficiencies that delay construction, that increase costs but does so by streamlining federal environmental review requirements and modernizing federal standards that no longer reflect today's modern building practices. These reforms will shorten the permitting timelines, and they will also directly lower the per unit construction costs. The bill also embraces innovation, particularly when it comes to manufactured and factory-built housing.”
Further Background: The Committee has held several hearings on housing.
|