The ROAD to Housing Act: The Single-Family Investor Ban and the Rulemaking Gap

Stephen D. Blevit, Partner | Alston & Bird LLP

Stephen D. Blevit is a Partner in the Century City office of Alston & Bird LLP, where he practices in the firm’s Structured & Warehouse Finance, Capital Markets & Securities, Real Estate, and Joint Ventures & Investments groups. Widely regarded as one of the pioneers of single-family rental (SFR) structured finance, Steve has handled more than $100 billion in transactions and helped build the financing and securitization architecture that the institutional single-family rental industry runs on today — the very market segment that the ROAD to Housing Act’s single-family investor provisions are designed to restrict.

• Education & Credentials

Steve earned his J.D. from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law (1995) and his B.S. from DePaul University (1992). He is admitted to practice in California and is also a Certified Public Accountant, bringing a rare combination of legal, accounting, and capital-markets fluency to the structuring of complex real estate finance transactions.

• Recognition & Leadership

Steve’s work has been recognized at the highest levels of the structured finance industry. Transactions he led have been named “Structured Finance Deal of the Year” (2013) and “SFR Securitization of the Year” (2022), and he was counsel on the landmark Zillow 2021-1 and 2021-2 securitizations. He is a recognized authority on the legal and regulatory framework governing institutional single-family rental investment, and his documentation forms have become the industry standard for SFR financings and securitizations.

• Professional Involvement

Earlier in his career, Steve served as assistant to the chairman of SunAmerica Inc., working directly for Eli Broad on mergers, acquisitions, and the management of alternative asset portfolios. He also served as an adjunct professor at the USC Gould School of Law from 2005 to 2008, where he taught mergers and acquisitions. He is a frequent speaker and commentator on structured finance, SFR capital markets, and the evolving federal and state policy landscape affecting institutional owners of single-family homes.

• Experience

At Alston & Bird, Steve represents issuers, sponsors, lenders, warehouse providers, and institutional investors in the full range of single-family rental, build-to-rent, and residential real estate finance transactions — including term securitizations, warehouse and credit facilities, joint ventures, and portfolio acquisitions and dispositions. Having drafted many of the financing and securitization templates the SFR industry relies on, and having worked with the largest institutional owners of single-family homes since the asset class was created, he is uniquely positioned to explain how the ROAD to Housing Act’s investor restrictions and the unresolved rulemaking gap will affect deal structures, existing portfolios, lender covenants, and capital flows into the U.S. housing market.

David McCarthy, Managing Director, Head of Legislative Affairs | CRE Finance Council (CREFC)

David McCarthy is Managing Director and Head of Legislative Affairs at the CRE Finance Council (CREFC), the trade association representing the $6 trillion commercial and multifamily real estate finance industry, where he leads the organization’s advocacy with federal lawmakers in Washington, DC. As CREFC’s chief lobbyist, David has been at the center of the congressional debate over the ROAD to Housing Act — serving as the industry’s lead voice on Capitol Hill regarding the bill’s institutional investor and build-to-rent provisions, and as the primary point of contact for members navigating the legislation’s implementation.

• Education & Credentials

David is a graduate of George Mason University School of Law and earned his undergraduate degree from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He grew up in rural Southwest Minnesota.

• Recognition & Leadership

David is a widely quoted authority on federal housing and real estate finance policy. His analysis of the ROAD to Housing Act’s single-family investor provisions — including the Senate’s seven-year build-to-rent divestment requirement, which he publicly characterized as “a nonstarter” from a policy perspective — has been featured in Commercial Observer and other leading industry and national media outl\ets. He is a regular speaker at CREFC conferences and industry forums on legislative developments affecting commercial and residential real estate capital markets.

Professional Involvement
Prior to joining CREFC in 2016, David was an Assistant Vice President in the Regulatory Affairs department at U.S. Bank in Washington, DC, where he advised the bank on federal legislative and regulatory developments affecting financial institutions. At CREFC, he led the industry’s engagement with House and Senate leadership, the House Financial Services Committee, and the Senate Banking Committee throughout the ROAD to Housing Act’s progression — advocacy that contributed to the House removing the seven-year divestment mandate in its 369-13 vote and narrowing the scope of the bill’s investor restrictions.

• Experience

In his role, David represents the CRE and multifamily finance industry before Congress and supports CREFC’s broader government relations effort by providing policy analysis and strategic guidance on legislative and regulatory matters, including GSE reform, housing supply legislation, bank capital rules, and securitization policy. His day-to-day involvement in the negotiations, drafting, and industry education surrounding the ROAD to Housing Act gives him a firsthand, insider’s perspective on what Congress intended with the single-family investor ban, where the statutory text leaves gaps for agency rulemaking, and what market participants should expect as regulators begin to fill those gaps.

SESSION 1 – The Institutional Investor Ban—Legislative History, Scope, and Key Definitions | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session traces the path from the earliest calls for single-family rental (SFR) regulation to the institutional investor prohibition enacted in the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. Beginning with the 2013 congressional calls for oversight that followed the first SFR securitization, the session reviews the 10–12 federal bills introduced over the following decade (including the Stop Wall Street Landlords Act, the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act, and the HOPE for Homeownership Act), the largely unsuccessful state-level efforts and New York’s notable 2025 exception, and the Trump Executive Order. Attorneys will then examine the Act itself: the prohibition on large institutional investors—entities with investment control of 350 or more single-family homes—purchasing single-family homes absent a statutory exception; civil penalties of up to $1 million per violation or three times the purchase price, whichever is greater; the January 7, 2027 effective date; the renter outreach program; and HUD reporting obligations. The session also covers the problematic provisions of the initial Senate version (the forced-sale provision, Treasury Secretary amendment authority, and the failure to carve out single-plat communities), the two House versions and the speaker’s involvement in drafting, and a close reading of the statute’s key definitions—”single-family home,” “purchase,” “large institutional investor,” and “investment control”—that determine who is covered and which acquisitions are caught.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – The Statutory Exceptions, Unresolved Issues, and the Rulemaking Gap | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session provides a detailed walk-through of each statutory purchase exception—for-sale housing, build-to-rent programs, renovate-to-rent programs, homeownership programs, programs to boost homeownership, debt satisfaction, mortgage servicing, purchases from other large institutional investors, the two-year rule, senior housing, combination purchases, and restructurings—with emphasis on reading each carve-out together with its statutory lead-in. Attorneys will then work through the interpretive issues facing practitioners today, including the timing problem in the for-sale housing exception, whether “newly constructed” in the build-to-rent exception refers to a point in time or a product type, the undefined “passive investor” concept in the investment-control clause, the absence of carve-outs for student housing, developmental-disability housing, armed-forces housing, and single-plat communities, the grandfathering of REO sales to large institutional investors and its impact on scattered-site portfolios, how to apply the renovate-to-rent “structural or core system elements” and 15% tests, whether sales between large institutional investors can ever be “in compliance with the Act,” the unclear consumer finance transaction exemption, and the uncertain reach of the “restructuring or other reorganization” exception to REIT acquisitions, recapitalizations, GP/LP restructurings, and mergers. The session closes with the Act’s rules of construction (no forced divestiture of pre-enactment holdings; no effect on bankruptcy proceedings) and Treasury’s notice-and-comment rulemaking authority, exercised in consultation with HUD, FHFA, and the SEC, to minimize market disruptions and mitigate negative impacts on consumers and communities.