House Flushes Warren's BTR Poison Pill: Big Win For OZs

JAJimmy Atkinson·May 28, 2026 · 11 min read

For months, a single provision in a popular bipartisan housing bill threatened to wipe out build-to-rent as a viable Opportunity Zone strategy. Last week, the U.S. House flushed it. The amended 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act strips the 7-year forced-sale requirement that would have collided with the OZ 10-year hold. Andy Hagans and Jimmy Atkinson break down what it means for investors.

Plus, Jimmy announces his new book, The Opportunity Zones Playbook; states gear up for the July 1 OZ 2.0 nomination window; and new commentary on the surprising early expiration of Puerto Rico's Opportunity Zones.

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OZ NewsHour covers the key stories happening right now in the world of Opportunity Zones. Hosts Andy Hagans and Jimmy Atkinson discuss the powerful trends that investors, fund managers, real estate developers, and industry professionals need to know. If it's a must-know development in the Opportunity Zone world, we cover it here.

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Episode Summary

In this episode of OZ NewsHour, Andy Hagans and Jimmy Atkinson cover the U.S. House's removal of the build-to-rent (BTR) 7-year forced-sale provision (Section 901) from the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a provision that would have conflicted with the Opportunity Zone 10-year hold and effectively barred OZ investment in build-to-rent housing. Jimmy and Andy also announce Jimmy's forthcoming book, The Opportunity Zones Playbook (June 2026), and break down state-level OZ 2.0 developments ahead of the July 1 nomination window, the CDFI Fund's forthcoming OZ nomination tool, upcoming OZ Insiders events and OZ Pitch Day on July 30, and new commentary on the early 2027 expiration of Puerto Rico's Opportunity Zone designations under IRS Rev. Proc. 2026-14.

Elizabeth Warren's BTR "Poison Pill" Gets Flushed

Andy Hagans and Jimmy Atkinson open this edition of OZ NewsHour with good news for Opportunity Zones, a build-to-rent poison pill the show has discussed before, one that Jimmy says was really going to do some serious harm to the Opportunity Zones program, has been removed from the latest version of the housing bill in play in Congress.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act

Jimmy sets the table. The legislation is the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. Housing has become the number one priority for the White House over the last several months, and President Trump issued an executive order some time back that covered a number of components dealing with housing. One of them is that he wants to restrict the ability for institutional investors to be owning all of these residential homes all across the country. Pursuant to that, the Senate passed a housing bill several weeks back that would have attacked institutional investors in housing.

Jimmy is careful to note that a lot of it came from a good place. They had good intentions with this, but there were some unintended consequences that he thinks Congress didn't really foresee. This is a huge bill, and the show is focusing on one very small provision of it.

The BTR 7-Year Forced-Sale Provision

One provision of the bill would have required builders and owners of build-to-rent housing, single-family homes built not to put on sale but for renting out to renters, to sell them after seven years. Jimmy says that's rife with a host of issues: forcing a sale at an arbitrary point in time seven years down the road when it might not make sense to, and could potentially equate to what he thinks could be a mass eviction of these renters in favor of wealthier buyers.

The main problem for Opportunity Zone investors, Jimmy explains, is that in order to achieve the full tax benefit of Opportunity Zone investing, you need to own the property for at least ten years. So a forced sale at the seven-year mark for any new BTR product coming online after passage of this act basically would have killed any Opportunity Zone investing in build-to-rent forever.

Jimmy shares an article on screen from atr.org, Americans for Tax Reform, a right-leaning organization that publishes commentary on different tax issues. The House version that amended the Senate version of the housing bill removed that provision, Elizabeth Warren's poison pill, as the article refers to it, which would have forced BTR sold within seven years, essentially banning Opportunity Zone investors from building build-to-rent stock.

The Pushback That Got It Removed

There was a lot of pushback on Section 901, the poison pill section that got eliminated. A bipartisan group of 76 House lawmakers sent a letter to House leadership urging it to be removed. The Economic Innovation Group weighed in from the Opportunity Zone investor perspective, saying this doesn't comport with part of the One Big Beautiful Bill that just made Opportunity Zones permanent, because now this particular asset, BTR, would no longer be a viable investment for Opportunity Zone investors. More or less, the letter from EIG asked House leadership to eliminate the section. Those letters weighed in, they were very helpful, and they did result in Elizabeth Warren's BTR poison pill being removed entirely.

The good news: BTR can still be invested in by OZ investors. The bill is back with the Senate now. Jimmy hopes the Senate doesn't slip in that language again, and the show will be tracking it.

Andy calls policy suggestions like this "sound bite policy," policy meant to be politically beneficial and sound good as a sound bite. But if you really think about what it would do, it would discourage investment in build-to-rent housing. As Andy puts it, this is incentives 101: if you want more of something you encourage or subsidize it, and if you want less of something you tax or discourage it. Build-to-rent housing in a lot of communities is operating as a sort of safety valve where there is a housing shortage. When you increase the supply of anything, assuming the demand curve stays constant, it drives down prices and makes housing more affordable. The sound bite is "we're not going to let these large Wall Street institutional firms own a huge swath of homes across America anymore," which sounds great in theory, but the problem is who's going to build these homes. Both hosts are cautiously optimistic, while hoping the Senate doesn't reinsert the language.

The Opportunity Zones Playbook

Andy notes how many intricate policy details intersect with the Opportunity Zones program, between OZ 1.0, OZ 2.0, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the programs overlapping. It would be nice if somebody would research it extensively and write a big book explaining things from A to Z, but there is no such book, until now.

Jimmy announces he has just finished writing The Opportunity Zones Playbook and holds up the first proof copy on screen, stamped "not for resale," sent to him as the author and to Andy as primary editor.

The book is set for release in June 2026. It's 240 pages, very well indexed, with 12 chapters broken into three parts. Part one is foundations, the first 75 pages, basically OZ 101. Part two is for investors, covering Jimmy's five-step Opportunity Zone investing framework, OZ sectors, how funds are structured, and how to source and vet investments. Part three goes beyond the basics: how to launch your own Qualified Opportunity Fund (Chapter 9), how to raise capital (Chapter 10), and the last couple of chapters on exit planning, the ten-year strategy, and compliance in the OZ 2.0 era.

The book touches on OZ 1.0 briefly but is written for the OZ 2.0 era, focused on 2027 and beyond. It's for investors, anyone raising capital for an OZ project, and advisors to the industry. Readers can join the launch team for early access to the first two chapters and a readers-only webinar. Andy, who read every word cover to cover at least five times as editor, vouches for the work that went into it. Coni Rathbone commented in the live chat that she was honored to write a review and will order copies for potential clients.

State-Level OZ 2.0 Developments

Andy credits Jill Homan's newsletter, the Opportunity Zone Outlook, and Frances Kern Mennone in the OZ Insiders group for keeping the show appraised of developments. Jimmy describes the state level succinctly: states are getting busy. July 1 is when states can hit the ground running and start making their nominations to the Treasury Department for Opportunity Zone designation.

Frances Kern Mennone's national OZ designation status update, presented in Jill Homan's newsletter, showed 22 states have published guidance, though Jimmy notes that issue is a couple weeks old and the latest count is 24, with Frances chiming in live to confirm 24 and three more coming this week. An EIG map displays which states have gone live, dark green for states with guidance or up-to-date information, light green for those a little behind. Montana, Idaho, and Nevada need to pick up speed; Texas, California, and Florida are looking good; New York, a big one, hasn't put out guidance yet. Connie noted live that Idaho has issued guidance and that she is representing three cities for nominations, and Frances added that California is in the next batch and Idaho now has an updated website.

From Jill Homan's OZ Outlook: Oregon and Kentucky are moving ahead with nominations (Oregon's applications were due May 22), Hawaii is convening a summit June 1, and Colorado is getting busy pushing rural investment ahead of OZ 2.0. Jimmy encourages community leaders and OZ operators to go to their state's leaders in the governor's office and advocate to be on the list the state sends to Treasury.

The CDFI Fund's OZ Nomination Tool

Jimmy covers the CDFI Fund issuing its OZ nomination tool. The CDFI Fund is the department within Treasury handling all 56 governors, 50 states, the mayor of Washington DC, and the governors of the five inhabited overseas territories, most notably Puerto Rico (plus Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa). The nomination tool doesn't exist yet but is coming soon. Jimmy learned that the official nomination process starts July 1, and he's heard the process should be simple, taking less than an hour to submit a list of tracts if you already know what you want to do.

The tricky part is off-list tract nominations, where you want to nominate a census tract that doesn't strictly meet the definition of a low-income community and must provide evidence to support why you believe it does. Treasury has informally opened a pre-adjudication period starting next week, where they will start taking nominations for off-list tracts and respond before July 1.

OZ Insiders Events and OZ Pitch Day

Jimmy runs through upcoming OZ Insiders events. The next is the OZ Insiders Masterclass via Zoom on Monday, June 8, where Jimmy will teach on OZ 2.0 designation guidance, with tips for getting census tracts in front of the state and nominated to Treasury, including off-list tracts. The next networking dinner is in Los Angeles, in the Manhattan Beach neighborhood at Rock'N Fish on Thursday, July 9, with 16 signed up and a room capacity around 25. Later dinners: the DFW area on Thursday, September 10, and Washington DC on October 28, the night before the Novogradac Opportunity Zone Summit. OZ Insiders has 100 members, meets monthly via Zoom, and four times a year in person.

Andy notes the next OZ Pitch Day is July 30. Despite concerns about a "dead zone" transition period between OZ 1.0 and OZ 2.0, the first pitch day was phenomenal and registrations are strong. Jimmy explains it's free for investors, this is the second OZ Pitch Day of 2026, and the first to feature a mix of sponsors raising for OZ 1.0 deals right now and sponsors presenting OZ 2.0 opportunities they'll fundraise for in 2027. Sessions include Jimmy's Opportunity Zone investing keynote, a session on captive QOF versus QOF, and the Ask the OZ Experts session. Nearly 100 people are already registered, with over 1,000 expected by July 30.

Pick of the Month

Jimmy's pick is Accelerator for America. A big deal in 2018, they're back with Opportunity Zone resources for local leaders for the OZ 2.0 era, including the OZ Toolkit for Local Leaders and the Opportunity Zone Prioritization Framework, released just last week, with contributions from Bruce Katz and Frances Kern Mennone. Jimmy calls it a great resource for mayors and local leaders, and also for developers and entrepreneurs who want to understand how local communities are thinking about Opportunity Zones.

Andy's pick is Jimmy's own article in Tax Notes, with the headline "Puerto Rico's Opportunity Zone Designations Expire Early. Should They?" The IRS issued Rev. Proc. 2026-14 on April 6, interpreting the interaction of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 such that Puerto Rico's Opportunity Zones were designated in 2017, not 2018 like everybody else's, and therefore expire at the end of 2027 rather than 2028.

Jimmy argues semantics of "date of designation" versus "effective date" across the two laws, calling the IRS reading strict but somewhat reasonable, while offering an alternative reading he thinks makes more sense: Puerto Rico should be allowed to keep its Opportunity Zones through the end of 2028 like everybody else. Being published in Tax Notes was a bucket-list item for Jimmy. Andy notes many IRS employees and officials read Tax Notes and thanks Jimmy for arguing on behalf of Puerto Rico.

The hosts will be back in a month with the next edition and to follow up on the book launch.