Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Senator Warren (D-MA), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and 16 Democratic Senators introduced The American Homeownership Act.
- The bill ends tax breaks and other housing benefits for Wall Street landlords and reinvests the savings to increase the supply of affordable housing, bring down housing costs, and support homeownership.
- The bill also empowers antitrust enforcers to prevent corporate buy-ups.
In Context: The introduction of this bill is Democrats’ response to Trump’s executive order signed in January to ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes that could otherwise be purchased by families.
What They’re Saying: Senator Warren upon introduction:
“America is in a housing crisis – and we need to tackle it from every angle. I’ve introduced the biggest bipartisan housing supply reform in decades. Today Democrats are introducing legislation to stop Wall Street from snapping up homes in bulk and jacking up rent for families. This bill will take on predatory landlords while making investments to increase housing supply and boost homeownership for Americans.”
Is LIHTC Affected? The bill recognizes the need to preserve incentives to build new housing and includes the following exceptions:
- Any entity that builds and owns new multifamily housing will be allowed to keep tax benefits for that new construction.
- Any entity that builds new single-family homes will be permitted to keep the tax benefits for five years, at which point the benefits will turn off – encouraging both new construction and sales to real people.
- Entities that are purchasing homes that are uninhabitable and require significant capital investment will be allowed to keep tax benefits for rehabilitating those properties.
- Owners of federally-funded affordable housing, including through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, would maintain their tax benefits, to support the creation of new affordable housing.
