A bipartisan housing bill designed to make buying a home more affordable became law over the weekend without President Donald Trump’s signature. While the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act went into effect, real estate insiders said prospective homebuyers shouldn’t expect immediate relief. The bill aims to reduce regulatory barriers to encourage more construction. It also encourages local governments to reform zoning restrictions, and it caps how many homes investors can own, limiting them to 350. There’s also a provision to make smaller mortgages of less than $100,000 easier to get. In California, the median price for a single-family home is more than $930,000. The median price in the Bay Area is $1.45 million. “There are many good things in this bill, but nothing in this bill is going to provide immediate relief for families who are critically struggling to be able to pay rent today,” Rep. Sam Liccardo said. “This is about expanding supply, making it easier to build affordable housing, building faster. All those things we needed to do years ago, we’re doing today.” Liccardo, who represents parts of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, said one thing that could help Silicon Valley specifically is a pilot program to convert vacant offices and other commercial space near transit and jobs into housing more easily. He couldn’t say how many units the pilot program could create, but he did say there are plenty of those kinds of existing buildings to work with. Liccardo said he will continue to work to allocate more funding for housing vouchers, which he said could have a better chance depending on how the November general election goes. ...read more read less