The New Federal Housing Law, Measured Against Chicago

Of the four parts of the new federal housing law that reach Chicago, the one that matches this city’s records most closely is its set of small-mortgage provisions: at least 1,532 Chicago homes sold for $100,000 or less in 2025, and lenders reported 289 purchase mortgages of that size. Its ban on home purchases by investors that control 350 or more single-family homes is the part Chicago’s deed record can say least about. The law is the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. It was presented to President Trump on June 29, 2026, he did not sign or return it, and it became law on July 11. We went through it and set four parts of it against Chicago records this site had already built.

Correction, September 30, 2026, to the Chicago figures: when this page was published on July 19, 2026, its small-mortgage section said 1,332 of the 19,720 homes sold in Chicago in 2025 went for under $100,000, 6.8 percent, and 760 of 8,104 houses. Three things were wrong with those counts. The county’s sales file had not finished recording 2025. The counts included parking spaces and storage units, which are recorded and sold as condominium parcels. And they stopped just short of $100,000, where the law’s line is $100,000 or less. On the file as retrieved September 30, 2026, with those parcels removed and the law’s cutoff, the figures are 1,532 of 24,885 homes, 6.2 percent, and 1,069 of 10,369 houses. Englewood’s share of house sales at that price is 45 percent, where the first version said 43. The permit counts were checked against the city’s file and stand. The inspection figures are from July 2026 and have not been recomputed.

Correction, September 30, 2026, to the buyer figures: earlier versions of this page said a company was the buyer on about one Chicago purchase in six so far in 2026, the highest share in nine years of records. That set five months against full years and counted trustees of land trusts as companies. Recomputed on the file as retrieved September 30, 2026, the highest full-year share is 15.1 percent, in 2018, and 2025’s is 14.8. The purchase counts for the most active buyers are recomputed on the same file.

Correction, September 30, 2026, to the summary of the law: the first version was written from an explainer of an earlier version of the bill and carried that version’s section numbers. In the enacted law the investor provision is section 1001, not 901; the planning grants are section 207, not 209; the Innovation Fund is section 208, not 210. The first version said investors who build or buy homes to rent must offer them for sale after seven years; the enacted law has no such rule. It said the small-mortgage sections let the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “potentially adjust” its thresholds; they order a report and an evaluation. It printed a meaning for the letters ROAD, which the Act does not give, and a Senate committee vote that is not in the Act’s legislative history. And it stamped the investor provision as “barely” touching Chicago, a judgment deeds cannot support, because a deed shows a purchase and not what the buyer owns. Every summary below was rewritten from the enacted text.

Public Law 119-101 · enacted July 11, 2026 · without a signature

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act

H.R. 6644 · presented to the president June 29, 2026 · became law without his signature on July 11 · four parts that reach Chicago, marked up below against county, federal and city records.

§ 1001

The ban on purchases by large investors

The Act titles this section “Homes are for people, not corporations.” It bars any large institutional investor from buying a single-family home, which the law defines as a structure with one or two dwelling units. A large institutional investor is a for-profit entity in the business of owning or renting such homes that, alone or with others, controls at least 350 of them. Homes built or renovated for sale, build-to-rent and renovate-to-rent programs, and homes taken in foreclosure are among the exceptions. Nothing already owned has to be sold. The ban starts 180 days after enactment and lapses 15 years later.

Unclearfrom Chicago’s deeds

This is the provision Chicago’s deed record can say least about. The ban turns on how many one- and two-unit homes an investor controls anywhere in the country. A deed records one purchase in Cook County, under whatever name the buyer used. We sorted the buyer name on every one of the 245,849 Chicago home sales in the county’s file, 2018 through mid-July 2026. The most active buyer of properties on many different parcels appears on 400 purchases over eight and a half years. The next, on 241, is a nonprofit that takes over distressed buildings with the city, and no other company appears on more than 131.

What those counts cannot show: what anyone owns today, what a buyer owns outside Chicago, or which companies share an owner. They also take in condos and larger flats, which the law’s definition leaves out. An investor with a large portfolio elsewhere is covered even if it has bought only a handful of homes here.

Our evidence: our reading of the buyer names on the deeds

§§ 401, 402, 105

Small-dollar mortgages

Section 401 orders the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to report to Congress within 270 days on how mortgage loan originators are paid and what that does to the availability of mortgages of $100,000 or less. Section 402 orders it to evaluate, in the same 270 days, how its points-and-fees thresholds affect mortgages under $100,000. Section 105 allows the Federal Housing Administration to set up a pilot program for such loans.

Squarelymatches our records

These sections are the part of the Act that matches Chicago’s records most closely. Of at least 24,885 homes recorded as sold here in 2025, 1,532 sold for $100,000 or less: 6.2 percent of all sales, and 1,069 of 10,369 house sales. They are not spread evenly. In Englewood, 45 percent of the houses that sold went for $100,000 or less; in West Englewood, 40 percent; in South Deering, 39 percent. Against those 1,532 sales, lenders reported 289 purchase mortgages of that size in the whole city.

A report and an evaluation are not a rule change, and the pilot program is allowed, not required. The sales count is a minimum: the county is still recording 2025 sales.

Our evidence: our count of small sales and small mortgages

§ 207

Grants for planning and implementation

Orders the Department of Housing and Urban Development to set up, within a year, competitive grants to states, cities, counties and regional planning agencies for planning and carrying out housing plans. For a city, the listed uses include administering reformed zoning codes and increasing the capacity to conduct housing inspections. The money may not pay for construction or repairs, and the section names no amount.

Directlymatches our records

Chicago’s own records show how far its inspection output has fallen. The city wrote 106,645 building-code violations in 2018 and 49,377 in 2025, and the inspections that produced them fell from 29,843 to 13,779. Budgeted staffing did not fall with them: the city funded 205 inspector positions in 2018 and 203 in 2024, though budgeted positions are not the same as filled ones. Inspection capacity is one of the uses this grant names, if the city applies for one.

The grants are competitive. Whether Chicago applies is the city’s decision; whether it is selected is not. As of July 19, 2026, neither had been announced, and we have not checked since.

Our evidence: our count of inspections and violations

§ 208

Innovation Fund

Orders the department to set up, within a year, competitive grants for local governments that have demonstrated an increase in their housing supply, measured by a method it must publish first. The section authorizes $200 million a year for fiscal years 2027 through 2031, in grants of $250,000 to $10 million.

Dependson the city competing

This is the section Chicago would have to compete for. The money follows demonstrated supply increases, and an application has to show three years of them. One measure we keep: Chicago issued 698 new-construction permits in the first half of 2026 against 666 in the first half of 2025, an increase of about 5 percent. Five community areas led the city: the Near West Side (53), the Loop (44), West Town (43), Lake View (42) and Lincoln Park (32).

An authorization is not an appropriation, and another section of the same Act, 1202, says no additional funds are authorized to carry it out; we do not resolve how the two fit together. Permits authorize construction; they are not finished homes, and the department may measure supply differently than we do.

Our evidence: our count of first-half permits

What the deeds can and cannot say about the investor ban

Company buying in Chicago is real, and our deed analysis measured it. A company was the buyer in 14.8 percent of the home purchases recorded for 2025, close to the 15.1 percent of 2018, and the share was far higher in some community areas: 30 percent or more in nine of them in 2024–25. Is any of those buyers part of a group that controls 350 homes? A deed does not say. The law supplies its own answer: every large institutional investor must tell the Department of Housing and Urban Development each year how many single-family homes it controls and in which cities, and the department must publish a report on those notices each year. That filing, not the deed record, is where a count for Chicago would come from.

Where the law meets what we have measured

Two parts of the Act describe things this site has already measured in Chicago. About one recorded home sale in 16 here closed at $100,000 or less in 2025, and in Englewood it was 45 percent of the houses; lenders reported 289 purchase mortgages of that size for the whole city. The Act orders two federal reviews of small-mortgage lending and allows a federal pilot program for it. The city’s recorded code-enforcement output, meanwhile, has run near half its 2018 level in every year since 2020, while the budgeted inspector count stayed near 200, and the Act lists inspection capacity among the things its planning grants can pay for.

What to watch next

The investor notices and the start of the ban. Large institutional investors must notify the housing department of their holdings within 180 days of enactment, which is January 7, 2027, and by every December 31 after that. The purchase ban takes effect on the same day. The department’s public report on the notices is due each March 31.
The two small-mortgage reviews. The report under section 401 and the evaluation under section 402 are both due within 270 days of enactment, which is April 7, 2027. Neither is a rule change.
The FHA pilot. Section 105 allows a small-mortgage pilot program and does not require one. The authority to start it ends three years after enactment.
Does Chicago apply? The department has a year from enactment to set up the planning grants and the Innovation Fund. Both are competitive and the city has to pursue them. As of July 19, 2026, there had been no public announcement either way; we have not checked since.
The manufactured-housing sections. Section 301 lets a manufactured home be built with or without a permanent chassis, and section 303 adds accessory dwelling units to what a federally insured home-improvement loan can finance. We have not measured either against Chicago’s records.

Sources and how we checked

The law: Public Law 119-101, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (H.R. 6644), as published by the Government Publishing Office. On September 30, 2026 we read sections 105, 207, 208, 301, 303, 401, 402, 1001 and 1202 and the Federal Register note at its end, which records that the Act was presented to the president on June 29, 2026 and became law without his signature on July 11. The first version of this page relied on a policy group’s explainer of an earlier version of the bill.
Chicago sales: our tabulation of the Cook County Assessor’s Parcel Sales file as retrieved September 30, 2026 (file last updated September 15, 2026): 2025 sales of houses, condominiums and two-to-six-flats that pass the Assessor’s screens for arms-length sales (sales between unrelated parties at a market price), with condominium parcels the Assessor flags as parking, storage or common area left out. The county is still recording 2025 sales, so the counts are minimums.
Small mortgages: federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act records for Cook County, 2025: home purchase loans of $100,000 or less, first liens, on one-to-four-unit dwellings, placed in Chicago by census tract. The loans and the sales are two separate record systems; no loan is matched to a sale.
Buyer names: the same county sales file (245,849 home sales, 2018 through mid-July 2026), with every buyer name sorted into companies, trusts, banks and government bodies, and people. Purchase counts are Chicago purchases in that window, not holdings.
Enforcement and permits: City of Chicago building violations (22u3-xenr) as read July 18, 2026; the city’s budget ordinances for inspector positions; and building permits (ydr8-5enu) as retrieved September 30, 2026.
What we are not claiming: that any provision will or will not work, or that it covers or spares any particular buyer. We set each part of the law beside the Chicago records that bear on it.

Reported and computed by KCM Desk; first published July 19, 2026, eight days after the Act became law; corrected September 30, 2026. Human-guided and edited — about this desk. If you spot an error, corrections come first.