Congressman Pat Ryan Delivers on Key Hudson Valley Priorities to Lower Housing Costs and Crack Down on Private Equity in Bipartisan Housing Bill
May 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Pat Ryan this week voted to pass the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, a comprehensive package of bipartisan legislation aimed at addressing the nationwide housing supply shortage and affordability crisis. The legislation passed the House with broad bipartisan support, and now moves onto the Senate.
The legislative package delivers on key priorities outlined in Ryan’s “Housing Affordability Agenda,” an all-of-the-above approach to lowering housing costs for Hudson Valley families.
“I hear it from folks every day – costs, especially housing costs – are still way too high. My ‘Housing Affordability Agenda’ was part of the very first legislation I introduced this Congress to bring down costs and cut through red tape, and I’m proud to see those priorities advance,” said Congressman Pat Ryan. “This legislation will lower the crushing housing costs across our community, make it easier to build, and crack down on the private equity firms buying up homes. I’ll keep fighting like hell to bring down costs for your family and for mine.”
The 21st Century Road to Housing Act would:
Remove unnecessary regulatory barriers to streamline housing development and affordability by:
- Allowing the use of ready-to-use, pre-approved home designs so builders can get permits faster and build homes more quickly.
- Modernizing and streamlining federal and local housing processes.
Stop corporate landlords from buying up more homes by:
- Prohibiting large institutional investors - like private equity - that own more than 350 single-family homes from purchasing additional homes.
Support new renter protections by:
- Creating a renter complaint hotline and public website for reporting, monitoring and resolving renter disputes with large institutional investor landlords.
- Establishing procedures for timely responses by HUD and large institutional landlords and connects renters with State authorities.
Speed up homebuilding and expand financing opportunities by:
- Updating rules for manufactured homes and making HUD the lead authority on standards.
- Modernizing the HOME Program, which is the largest federal block grant program for states to increase the supply of affordable housing.
- Exempting small-scale housing developments from burdensome federal environmental reviews and giving jurisdictions more flexibility and time to commit funds, and fewer rigid federal constraints.
Support community banking operations that enable homeownership by:
- Cutting red tape and streamlining bank exams and outdated thresholds so well-run, community banks can focus on lending, not paperwork.
- Expanding community and rural banks’ access to stable deposits so they can lend locally and support small businesses, farmers, and households.
- Supporting rural banks, encouraging new banks, and providing regulators flexibility to handle failures without hurting local access to banking
Lowering costs, specifically when it comes to the price of housing, is a top priority for Congressman Ryan. Since 2020, single-family home prices in NY-18 have risen by 47.1%. Rent has increased by 15% in each of the three counties Ryan represents. In 2024, Ryan also called for an FTC investigation into price gouging by Wall Street private equity firms driving up housing costs. Part of Congressman Ryan’s first legislation this Congress was his Housing Affordability Agenda, an all-of-the-above approach to address the housing crisis and lower housing costs for Hudson Valley families:
- The Working Families Housing Tax Credit Act incentivizes developers to build more equitable housing by authorizing below market rate loans and creating a new tax credit for developers building affordable housing utilizing union labor.
- The PRO Housing Act provides funding for municipalities to convert or rehab existing housing, commercial spaces, and industrial centers in addition to “from scratch” developments. There will also be an emphasis placed on building near transit centers, and the establishment of a pilot program for the General Services Administration (GSA) to transfer unused federal land for development; thus eliminating government waste and increasing housing options.
- The Deliver Housing Now Act cuts through the bureaucratic red tape to allow municipalities to use federal dollars according to local priorities. If passed it would allow municipalities to utilize federal dollars in whichever category of housing is most impactful to the people they serve.
- The Mortgage Rate Reduction Act simplifies the federal loan assumption process, so that more than 11.3 million houses financed at lower interest rates through VA, USDA, or FHA loans are available to home-buyers.
Additionally, Congressman Ryan helped pass the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which would increase the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, and develop more than 200,000 affordable housing units. Ryan has also championed housing in his federal Community Project Funding nominations and awards, securing $1 million for the Rumshock Veterans Foundation to tackle veteran homelessness and $1 million for the Chester Agricultural Center to construct its farmworker housing project. In the fall of 2023, he secured $199,000 for HONOR to provide emergency housing and services for youth facing homelessness in Orange County.
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