What the Housing for the 21st Century Act could change for homebuilding costs in 2026

What passed—and why it matters

On February 10, 2026, the House passed the Housing for the 21st Century Act by a 390–9 vote, advancing one of the more wide-ranging federal housing supply packages in years.[nar.realtor] The package is framed around a simple housing-market reality: when the U.S. builds too few homes, prices and rents tend to stay elevated—especially in the regions where job growth has outpaced construction.[congress.gov]

The throughline is cost and time. Even when demand is strong, projects can stall in a maze of requirements, duplicative compliance steps, and review timelines that add months (or years) before a shovel hits the ground. Those delays don’t just slow unit deliveries—they raise carrying costs and can push marginal projects into the “not feasible” bucket.

What’s inside the Housing for the 21st Century Act

The bill bundles a large number of provisions—roughly “two dozen,” according to Realtor.com—aimed at speeding construction and easing paths to financing.[realtor.com] In broad strokes, the act focuses on:

• Modernizing key federal housing programs (including HOME and Community Development Block Grants)
• Streamlining federal reviews that can delay construction
• Updating certain manufactured housing rules
• Removing duplicative requirements across federal programs

Those changes are not a substitute for local land-use decisions, but they are designed to reduce federal-side friction and give state and local actors more flexibility in how core housing dollars are deployed.[nar.realtor][naco.org]

The impact-fee angle: SPUR Housing Act

While the larger package tackles multiple bottlenecks, a newly introduced proposal targets a very specific cost driver: impact fees. The Supporting Projects to Unleash Residential (SPUR) Housing Act would create a five-year, $1.5 billion HUD grant program to provide funds to housing developers to offset state and local impact fees.[pappas.house.gov]

The design includes a local “skin in the game” requirement: to be eligible, state and local governments would need to match half of the project taxes or fees.[pappas.house.gov] That structure is meant to reduce the all-in fee burden while discouraging fee shifting that leaves the federal program as the sole payer.

If adopted, this approach could matter most in markets where fees are a meaningful line item in per-unit costs—or where fees make smaller, entry-level product especially hard to pencil. But because impact fees vary dramatically by jurisdiction, the effectiveness would likely depend on how HUD sets program rules and how localities choose to participate.

What to watch next

1) **Senate pathway and bill shape.** The House package now moves to the Senate, and the final product could look different once negotiations and procedural constraints kick in.[nar.realtor][naco.org]

2) **Implementation details.** “Streamlining” lives or dies on guidance, timelines, and the day-to-day decisions agencies make. Even well-written reforms can underdeliver if the implementation is slow or uneven.

3) **Local pipeline reality.** Federal flexibility can help, but local zoning, staffing capacity, and infrastructure constraints still determine how quickly units can be entitled and delivered—particularly in high-demand metros.

Bottom line: the House vote signals real momentum around lowering the non-material costs of building—time, process, and fees. Whether that translates into more starts (and more affordable entry points) will depend on what survives into law and how quickly it’s executed.[nar.realtor][pappas.house.gov]