US Senate advances bill to lower housing prices

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

March 11, 2026 6:07 AM EDT Updated 9 hours ago


WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) - Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress are lining up behind legislation to encourage more affordable housing, in ​a rare example of bipartisan action on a quality-of-life issue for voters.

The bill, which has drawn broad support from industry groups, ‌would overhaul regulations to make it faster and cheaper to build new housing. It would also modernize rules for factory-built housing and ban large investment groups from buying more single-family homes, a measure backed by President Donald Trump.

The Senate late on Wednesday voted 84-10 to back a compromise version of the measure and 82-11 to clear the way for a ​vote on passage, likely on Thursday. At a time when Republicans and Democrats are fighting bitterly over Trump's immigration crackdown and the war on Iran, lawmakers ​have rallied around the affordable-housing effort.

The latest version is spearheaded by Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Democratic Senator Elizabeth ⁠Warren of Massachusetts. The House of Representatives passed its own version by a similar margin, and the two chambers will have to resolve their differences before ​Trump can sign it into law.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-lawmakers-advance-bill-lower-housing-prices-2026-03-11/

[WSHazel]

1. This bill will create a glut of houses

Every time the government gets involved in housing, it turns into a subsidy for home builders. The government has done this in the 80’s and 00’s, and it ended badly both times.

The government should normalize the tax advantages of owning a home between investors and residents. Since about 90% of taxpayers use the standard deduction, mortgage interest is effectively no longer tax deductible for most Americans. This gives investor owners a tax advantage, and subsidy, when buying a house, because interest is always tax deductible for investment.

Either make mortgage interest tax deductible for all or for none. That would even the playing field.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. What the feds *should do* is work with local municipalities

to coordinate where these will go.

Instead of the builders continually building "McMansions" over and over and over that eventually never get sold and often end up bulldozed, this could go back to the era of the "Sears Kit Home", and get them installed on vacant land where homes once stood that were abandoned, left vacant, and then collapsed.

Take the above concept and extrapolate to the "pre-fabs" of today. The big home builders like the rip-off Toll Brothers, don't want this because it cuts into their profits. And their mentality is just like some of the car companies who insist they make "more profit" off of building HUGE SUVs and pickups, rather than offer the smaller sedans, and thus foreign companies like Hyundai-Kia make bucks selling inexpensive sedans.

[Puppyjive]

8. We need a glut of housing

There isn't enough housing and investors have bought up all that was available.Tax breaks don't help the homeless. Affordable rent does.

[WSHazel]

9. There are lots of surplus homes

In markets in the upper Midwest and inland in the Northeast. People don’t want to live there, so they are really cheap. Much of the Deep South and west also has reasonable housing.

These government subsidies for home builders will go mostly to red states like Florida and Texas. This is just another law to take from the blue and give to the red.

[ClaudetteCC]

10. In the past i've enjoyed living in the upper midwest and frequently visiting inland in the northeast

What changed? What made them palatable once (such that housing was built) but no longer?

[WSHazel]

11. Tax subsidies

There are massive tax transfers from blue northern states to red states in the south.

Poke around here:

https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-payments-portal/

[valleyrogue]

3. Not one damned thing for people who must rent.

Clueless as always.

These clueless people think everybody is married and has kids and with two income households. This despite the fact more and more people are single and don’t have the funds to waste on stick houses on a lot.

In my neck of the woods, the majority of rentals are owned by a single individual who lets the places get run down and often evicts renters for no cause so that he can jack up the rents for new tenants.

The crisis is people facing NO shelter at all, not with people rich enough to afford houses and the outrageous costs in maintaining them. This legislation will do nothing for these people, absolutely nothing.

When will these people start living in reality?

[WSHazel]

4. There are a lot on rental units coming

The commercial to residential conversions are creating a lot of units and removing vacant commercial space. A win for everyone.

This is one area where I don’t mind a little government help to speed up the conversions.

[valleyrogue]

6. What is called affordable housing in my neck of the woods has waiting lists of many YEARS.

Many people like me make too much money to get into them, but if we retire, we don't have enough money to make it feasible to do anything but pay rent, food, and utilities. There would be little left over.

Whatever "reforms" by these clueless politicians will not address the fact there are individuals, not to mention companies, who are buying up almost ALL the rental apartments and mobile home parks--not stick houses on lots--letting them get run down while ignoring tenants' requests for repairs, and evicting people for no cause in order to jack up the rents for the new people moving into these units.

[Jose Garcia]

13. When the housing supply increases, rent prices decrease,

(or don't rise as sharply). There are renters who want to own, but can't due to a lack of supply. If you get those people out of the rental market the price of rentals will decline.

[WSHazel]

5. There is a population crash scenario that is not far fetched

The housing shortage theory assumes future immigration will be like past immigration. It won’t. It will take at least a generation for immigrants to trust our government again, to say nothing of emigration. America has a large population of skilled labor that is very employable in Europe and Asia where there are aging populations and a shortage of skilled labor. Many of these Americans are already leaving, and we should expect this trend to continue. We could flip to net population decline within 10 years or less.

This means that our housing “shortage” is not nearly as big as builders claim, and could quickly become a glut.

[angrychair]

7. "compromise bill"

Always seems to mean that poor people get fucked and billionaires make bank. Not to mention if Mango Mussolini supports it then I am very suspicious. He only supports grift and insider trading so everything about this screams "crime".

Plus, Democrats should not be working with people that are actively trying to destroy the republic.

[Nigrum Cattus]

12. More stupidity, again

It doesn't matter if it's "easier" to build houses if no
one can afford them
Nearly 75% of U.S. Households Cannot Afford a Median-Priced
New Home in 2025
February 2025
Special Study for Housing Economics
Na Zhao, Ph.D.
Economics and Housing Policy
National Association of Home Builders
Housing affordability remains a critical issue, with 74.9% of U.S. households unable to afford a
median-priced new home in 2025, according to NAHB’s latest analysis. With a median price of
$459,826 and a 30-year mortgage rate of 6.5%, this translates to around 100.6 million
households priced out of the market, even before accounting for further increases in home prices