American Housing and Economic Mobility Act of 2025

You would qualify if neither parent has owned a home and you earn under 120% of your area's median income. Move out inside five years and you pay part of it back.

States would get money for owners in neighborhoods where homes sell for less than they cost to build. It can pay overdue mortgage payments, second mortgages, back taxes, water bills, or repairs.

The Capital Fund pays for roofs, heating, elevators, and mold work in public housing. The bill sets it at $70 billion for one year, far above its usual level.

A new Middle Class Housing Emergency Fund would go to states where rents or home prices have outrun local incomes. Money can build homes or pay for eviction defense, anti-harassment work, and emergency rent aid.

Living descendants of veterans who served between June 1944 and April 1968 could use the VA home loan benefit. The veteran must have died without ever using it, and the descendant must be a first-time, first-generation buyer.

The money covers direct home loans, farm labor housing, rural rentals, self-help housing grants, and repairs to older rural apartments. It is a one-year appropriation for 2025.

FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac would have to send certified mail before putting your loan in a sale. The notice must list the help you can ask for and how to challenge your servicer.

Anyone building housing with the zoning grants or the new emergency fund must be paid the going rate for that trade in that area. The Labor Department sets and enforces the rate.

Cities compete for these grants by easing rules that block housing. Weakening wage, hour, family leave, safety, or union laws would not count toward winning one.

Fair housing law would add sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, and veteran status. It would also protect people who are only assumed to belong to a protected group.

Where your rent money comes from would become a protected trait. That includes Section 8 vouchers, disability payments, child support, and pensions.

Whoever buys your government-backed loan must offer help at least as good as before. If they skip the required steps, a court could stop the foreclosure.

Federal rules already set a minimum share of units built for people with disabilities. Housing paid for under this bill would have to double that share.

It is already a federal crime to threaten or injure someone over housing because of race or religion. The same crime would reach threats based on sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, income source, or veteran status.

Banks may invest in projects that mainly help low- and moderate-income families and communities. A well-capitalized bank could put up to 25% of its capital and surplus into them.

Buyers state their own first-time and first-generation status. A lender that relies on that statement in good faith could not be fined or forced to buy the loan back.

Two exams in a row rated 'needs to improve' or worse would trigger penalties. Regulators could cap growth or dividends, force a bank to shed business lines, or take back executive pay.

The Community Reinvestment Act now covers only banks. The consumer bureau would grade nonbank mortgage lenders on how well they serve low- and moderate-income areas.

At least 75% of homes the FHA takes back must go to people who will live in them. Nonprofits that will resell to such buyers also count. For loans sold out of the FHA, the share is 90%.

Farmland can be valued for its farm use instead of its development price. The most that can come off rises to $3 million, for deaths after December 31, 2025.

Only the value above that line would be taxed. Today's exemption is far higher, so many more estates would owe federal tax.

The new table starts at 55% and reaches 60% above $13 million. The 65% rate applies above $93 million.

The surcharge sits on top of the regular estate tax. It applies to deaths after the bill becomes law.

Estates and trusts would owe 5% on income above $200,000, plus another 3% above $500,000. Charitable trusts are left out.

Money left to great-grandchildren or later, or held in a long-running family trust, would face the generation-skipping tax. Trusts set up before 2026 are treated as starting January 1, 2026.

Assets in a trust the giver still controls for income tax would be added back to the estate. Payouts to others during the giver's life would count as gifts.

These trusts let people pass investment gains to heirs tax-free if they outlive the trust. The term would have to be at least ten years, and heirs' share must start at 10% of the value.

Families often cut the taxed value of a business stake because a minority share is hard to sell. That discount ends when the family controls the business, and idle assets are valued on their own.

Today the yearly tax-free gift amount applies separately to each person you give to. Gifts into trusts and other hard-to-sell interests would share one cap, twice the per-person amount.

Land under a conservation easement can be left out of an estate's taxable value. The cap rises to $2 million and the excluded share rises to 60%, for deaths after December 31, 2025.

Regulators would add up a bank's loans for new oil, gas, and coal projects. That total comes off the bank's community development lending, unless it is offset by clean energy or climate resilience work in underserved areas.

Regulators would have to open a comment window on any application to merge, buy, or open branches. Banks with $50 billion or more in assets would also get a public hearing.

Regulators would post each bank's community development lending by county and neighborhood income. A searchable public database would carry consumer and small business lending, with personal details kept out.

Banks with $2 billion or more in assets would form community advisory committees in each region they serve. Executives must meet them twice a year, and before any merger or branch closing.

When Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac sells loans in bulk, the housing regulator must post how those loans did afterward. The reports run four years and include a fair lending review.

The $2 billion-a-year grants are meant to remove barriers to building homes. A city could also spend that money fixing public schools and colleges, or on local transportation projects.