What Happened?
A number of stocks jumped in the afternoon session after both chambers of Congress passed the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.
This was dubbed the most significant federal housing-supply legislation since 1990. It targets supply by cutting red tape, streamlining environmental reviews, modernizing manufactured-housing rules, and barring institutional owners of 350-plus single-family homes from buying more existing homes.
Earlier in the session, Trump canceled the Capitol signing, saying it was off until Congress passes the SAVE Act (the voter-ID measure he calls the "SAVE AMERICA ACT"). Builders rallied regardless. The read-through is a multi-year volume story rather than a near-term demand fix.
The bill does nothing about the roughly 6.5–6.8% 30-year mortgage rate that is still the binding constraint on buyer demand but it lowers the cost and friction of building, which is direct leverage on builder volumes, and the 350-home cap nudges demand toward new construction over investor-owned existing homes. The House also stripped a seven-year forced-sale rule on build-to-rent homes that the National Association of Home Builders warned could cut single-family output by about 40,000 units a year.
Adding to the positive momentum, peer, KB Home reported a significant revenue beat as Treasury yields declined. KB Home reported Q2 revenue of $1.11 billion, beating the $1.10 billion consensus, while the 10-year Treasury yield dropped below 4.5%. KB Home's results provide a critical read-through for the entire housing sector: demand for new construction remains robust despite affordability concerns. The fact that KB Home beat revenue expectations confirms that builders are successfully using incentives and built-to-order models to close sales.
Furthermore, the drop in the 10-year yield directly impacts mortgage rates, which currently sit around 6.56%. Lower rates improve affordability, validating the thesis that the structural shortage of existing homes will continue to drive buyers to new builds.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.
Among others, the following stocks were impacted:
- Home Builders company Meritage Homes (NYSE: MTH) jumped 9.3%. Is now the time to buy Meritage Homes? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Home Builders company PulteGroup (NYSE: PHM) jumped 7.8%. Is now the time to buy PulteGroup? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
Zooming In On Meritage Homes (MTH)
Meritage Homes’s shares are somewhat volatile and have had 13 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 2 months ago when the stock gained 6.4% on the news that oil prices dropped, as Iran announced the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. For homebuilders, energy is a major input cost for the manufacturing and transport of building materials like lumber, concrete, and copper. A reduction in these "behind-the-scenes" costs allows builders to maintain margins while offering more competitive pricing to prospective buyers. Furthermore, the update revived hopes that the Federal Reserve may have more room to maneuver on interest rates later in the year. While mortgage rates remained high, the improved macroeconomic stability encouraged fence-sitting buyers to re-enter the market. The sentiment shift suggested that the long-term demand for housing would remain resilient as the geopolitical "storm clouds" cleared.
Meritage Homes is up 24.5% since the beginning of the year, and at $82.43 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $82.83 from September 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Meritage Homes’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,770.
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