Housing bill quietly limps its way into law

• Key insight: A bipartisan housing bill passed Congress with overwhelming margins in both chambers before President Donald Trump canceled a signing ceremony the morning it was to become law.
• What’s at stake: The law reshapes manufactured and modular housing rules, restricts large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, and includes a handful of banking industry priorities like brokered deposit reforms.
• Forward look: Housing groups say the legislation is a good start, but other reforms — like tax tweaks and other changes to boost housing supply and activity — are still needed. 

WASHINGTON — After months of negotiations and weeks of last-minute drama, the bipartisan housing bill became law at midnight. 

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The bill aims to cut red tape for housing construction funds, although analysts expect the impact on housing supply to be marginal in the short- to medium-term. It does make real changes in the manufactured housing industry, and it includes a number of riders that bankers favor, including a reciprocal deposit bill and one that reduces the number of exams some small banks may need to undergo. 

Among its changes on the housing front, the law eliminates the permanent chassis requirement for manufactured housing, gives the Department of Housing and Urban Development regulatory power over modular housing, bans institutional investors from buying more single-family rentals in some cases and creates a HUD program for mortgages less than $100,000. 

The bill became law after President Donald Trump said Friday morning that he would refuse to sign it as a protest against Republicans’ inability to get their voter ID law through Congress for want of support within the party. Midnight marked the end of the 10-day period in which the president either has to sign or veto the bill. 

Trump’s displeasure with the bill — or at least unwillingness to give it any affirmative blessing — is fairly recent, first coming to light when he abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for the bill and called it a “big yawn” for housing. Only shortly before that moment, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the bill as “one of the most significant pieces of housing legislation in American history.” 

Both chambers of Congress passed the bill with wide bipartisan support. 

Housing groups generally applauded the bill becoming law, although they said more work is yet to be done. 

The Community Home Lenders of America said in a statement that Congress should next “move on to action on tax changes to make it easier to access the trillions of dollars in stocks and [individual retirement accounts] to use for a down payment on a home.”