Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, today introduced the Rental Housing Investment Act. By modernizing the tax code, this legislation would lower construction costs and create stronger incentives to build new rental homes that families can realistically afford.
“If we’re going to reduce the cost of housing, we need to build more homes – and build them faster,” said Senator Blunt Rochester. “My Rental Housing Investment Act lowers construction costs and helps get more shovels in the ground so we can expand the supply of rental housing, from townhomes to apartment complexes. It’s long past time for us to break down barriers to housing for American families.”
The United States is experiencing a persistent shortage of rental housing, particularly multifamily apartments. Construction has not kept pace with population growth and household formation, contributing to rising rents and the broader affordability crisis. A key barrier to new construction is the high upfront cost of building rental housing. Under current tax law, developers must recover construction costs slowly – over 27.5 years – making many otherwise viable projects financially difficult, especially in a high-interest rate environment.
The Rental Housing Investment Act accelerates the construction of new housing by modernizing cost recovery in the tax code and encouraging greater private investment in rental housing.
The bill would:
- Allow builders to immediately deduct up to $150,000 per unit in construction costs, rather than depreciating those costs over 27.5 years.
- Provide an enhanced deduction of up to $250,000 per unit for projects that include income-restricted units reserved for working families under long-term attainability commitments.
- Apply only to newly constructed multifamily rental housing, ensuring the incentive drives new supply.
- Require projects receiving the enhanced benefit to maintain attainability commitments for at least 15 years, with recapture provisions if those commitments are not met.
The introduction of this legislation builds on Senator Blunt Rochester’s dedication to addressing our nation’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. In September 2025, she introduced “The New Way Home Agenda: A Federal Framework to Address America’s Housing Crisis,” her comprehensive legislative agenda to lower housing costs in Delaware and across the nation. Earlier today, the Senate passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a landmark bipartisan housing package that contains two of Senator Blunt Rochester’s bills aimed at increasing housing supply and lowering costs nationwide.
A one pager on the Rental Housing Investment Act can be found here. The full text can be found here.
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Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester represents Delaware in the United States Senate where she serves on the Committees on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Environment and Public Works; and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.