The Senate reached a deal on Sunday aimed at ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history—a move that could have significant implications for the housing market.
After a weekend of negotiations led by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus agreed to support Republicans in a 60-40 vote on a legislative package to fund the federal government.
The bipartisan agreement still has several procedural steps and legislative hurdles to clear before the government could officially reopen: It must pass the House, where lawmakers have been away since September, before heading to President Donald Trump‘s desk for his signature, according to the Associated Press.
On Monday, the White House threw its support behind the Senate deal, saying in a statement: “President Trump has wanted the government reopened since the first day Democrats shut it down. The action in the Senate is a positive development and we look forward to seeing it progress.”
The Senate package will fund the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Congress through the current fiscal year, which ends next fall.
Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps, would continue through September 2026.
SNAP has been at the center of a political firestorm and sparked legal battles—including U.S. Supreme Court involvement—after lapsing on Nov. 1 due to the shutdown, leaving roughly 42 million low-income Americans without access to food assistance.
Under the legislation, all other government agencies, programs, and services will be funded only through Jan. 30, 2026. The bill also guarantees back pay for furloughed federal employees who have been working without a paycheck for the past 40 days and counting, among them air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration agents.
Notably, the package does not include a provision to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, commonly known as Obamacare, which have been at the heart of the impasse between Democrats and Republicans leading up to the shutdown.
In exchange for their cooperation, centrists Democrats secured a commitment from Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, to hold a vote on the ACA subsidies in the Senate in mid-December, just weeks before they are due to expire and potentially raise insurance premiums for millions of Americans.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), however, has refused to promise Democrats a vote on the extension of subsidies in his chamber.
Democrats are sharply divided over the vote
The issue has caused a public rift among Democratic lawmakers, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) voting against the funding legislation.
“We asked President Trump to step in and meet with us to deliver lower health care for Americans, and, instead, Donald Trump has taken the American people hostage,” said Schumer.
The pivotal vote on Sunday sparked a wave of condemnation from the left against the eight Democrats who broke ranks: Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Angus King of Maine, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren slammed her colleagues’ decision to join Senate Republicans in the vote as a “terrible mistake.”
“The American people want us to stand and fight for health care, and that’s what I believe we should do,” said the Massachusetts Democrat.
Other progressives reacted with even greater anger to the compromise, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a vocal Trump critic, labeling it “pathetic.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said it would be a “political disaster for the Democrats to cave” without extracting major concessions from the Republicans.
What the Senate deal means for housing
The end of the government shutdown would restore a wide range of critical programs and services that many homebuyers and homeowners depend on.
During the stalemate in Washington, DC, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and VA loans have continued to be issued, although often with processing delays, while the USDA loan program has been suspended entirely, halting activity in rural and suburban markets.
“Resuming these programs at full capacity would allow those buyers to move forward with confidence, eliminating uncertainty around both timelines and funding,” Realtor.com® senior economic research analyst Hannah Jones says.
When the shutdown went into effect more than a month ago, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which insures nearly 5 million properties in flood-prone areas across the U.S., expired.
Standard homeowners insurance does not cover flood damage, and for any home located in a high-risk flood zone, flood insurance is a mandatory requirement for federally backed loans. That means that without NFIP, many closings cannot move forward.
Jones says restarting NFIP would be “significant” because it would allow home sales in areas exposed to flooding that have been stalled to finally close.
At the same time, furloughed government employees, some of whom may have delayed home purchasing decisions because of the income disruption and uncertainty surrounding their employment amid threats of mass layoffs from the Trump administration, could reenter the market once their paychecks resume.
According to Jones, that could provide a modest boost to buyer demand, especially in metros with the highest concentrations of government employees, led by DC, Virginia Beach, VA, and Oklahoma City, OK.
Shannon McGahn, executive vice president and chief advocacy officer at the National Association of Realtors®, welcomed the looming end of the shutdown.
“An end to the shutdown is welcome news for Americans whose home purchases and insurance renewals have been delayed or derailed over the past several weeks,” McGahn tells Realtor.com.
The NAR official says that agents across the U.S. have reported stalled FHA, VA, and USDA loans, which have rippled through local economies.
“Housing is nearly one-fifth of our nation’s GDP, and every day of disruption has real consequences for families,” adds McGahn. “We’re encouraged by progress toward reopening the government and urge policymakers to work together on long-term solutions that protect homeowners, buyers, and the broader economy.”
Federal Reserve to receive key data
Reopening the federal government will also allow the collection and release of crucial economic data, such as monthly jobs reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to resume, not only restoring transparency to financial markets but also informing the Federal Reserve’s policy decisions.
Since the beginning of the stalemate, the central bank has been forced to adjust interest rates without access to key labor figures, including slashing its overnight rate by a quarter of a percentage point last month.
The next Federal Open Market Committee meeting is scheduled for Dec. 9–10, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell said another rate cut was far from certain.
Jones says the orderly release of employment and inflation numbers by the government would reduce friction in the housing market and help restore confidence among buyers and lenders alike.
However, she warns that the data collection infrastructure has likely been disrupted, meaning that most reports will be delayed beyond the end of the shutdown.