The bill
Representative Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin introduced the Sustainable Homeownership Act, H.R. 9460, on June 25, 2026; it was referred that day to the House Committee on Financial Services, where it remains as of September 22, 2026 with no further recorded action [4](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr9460). The bill runs 43 pages and amends the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation Act and the Federal National Mortgage Association Charter Act, touching provisions codified at 12 U.S.C. 1454, 1455, 1709, 1717, 1719, 4502, 4513b, 4541, 4565 and 4611 [5](https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr9460ih/related).
The enterprises have been under Federal Housing Finance Agency conservatorship since September 2008. Fitzgerald's bill sits alongside two companion measures introduced the same day: the Working Families Home Construction Act of 2026 (H.R. 9461), which would direct FHFA to permit Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase and securitize qualifying residential construction loans made by depository institutions, credit unions or state housing finance agencies, and a third bill Fitzgerald described as the Home Affordability Through Mortgage Simplification Act. In a press release, Fitzgerald said the package “locks in conservative reforms that have been done administratively, brings more private capital into the mortgage market, and protects taxpayers from future bailouts” [1](https://urbanmilwaukee.com/pressrelease/rep-fitzgerald-introduces-package-of-housing-legislation-to-end-the-gse-conservatorship-help-fix-americas-housing-supply-crisis/).
The loan-limit change is the substantive one
The provision with the most direct effect on borrowers would tie future increases in the conforming loan limit to household income rather than to home-price appreciation.
Under current law the baseline limit is adjusted annually by the change in FHFA's house price index. That mechanism is self-reinforcing: when prices rise, the limit rises, which extends the reach of conforming financing to more expensive homes, which supports prices. Indexing to income would break that loop and, in any period where prices outpace earnings, would gradually shrink the share of the market eligible for conforming execution.
The consequence would fall on buyers in high-cost metros, who would move into jumbo financing at lower price points than they do today. Whether that is a feature or a defect depends on whether one reads the conforming limit as a consumer subsidy or as a boundary on taxpayer exposure. Section 2 of the bill text, as introduced, amends Section 305 of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation Act, 12 U.S.C. 1454, which currently bars Freddie Mac from purchasing a conventional mortgage with a loan-to-value ratio above 80 percent unless it carries mortgage insurance, a seller guarantee or a retained participation covering the excess; the bill would recalculate that loan-to-value threshold using the lesser of appraised value or purchase price rather than appraised value alone, and would tie the required first-loss coverage to the same lesser-of standard [2](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr9460ih/pdf/BILLS-119hr9460ih.pdf).
Status as of September 22
H.R. 9460 has not been scheduled for a Financial Services Committee markup, has no Senate companion identified in the congressional record, and GovTrack's own prognosis model gives it roughly a 3 percent chance of enactment, in line with most single-sponsor GSE-reform bills [4](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr9460). Comprehensive housing finance reform bills have been introduced in most Congresses since 2011 without passage.
The reason to track this one is the income-indexing idea, which is a genuinely different design choice from anything in current law and would survive as a policy proposal even if this particular bill does not advance.