Housing Supply Shortage

The demand for housing is not the problem. It's the supply that is the problem. The supply is being kept artificially low

jeffbee is correct:"Supply skepticism and shortage denialism are pushing against the actual solution to the housing crisis: building enough homes."https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing...

The answer is to build more housing, it is simple supply and demand

For one there isnt a single housing market, there are a lot of segmented housing markets that only partially overlap. In high demand areas, land is already limited.For another zoning restrictions are severe in the US, with most residential land zoned for single family housing with large lot sizes.With high upfront costs, limited land, and political issues, developers would rather build high end housing, which has led to over supply in the high end market, and under supply in the low end ma

I see how low interest rates increase demand. But in my opinion the lack of supply is a much bigger issue. Most people have most of their net worth in their homes, and spend their political will ensuring nothing new is built. That and related phenomenon I put under a broad “zoning laws” statement. We need to incentivize building more, taller. That’s it.

House prices depend on supply and demand. Housing investors increase the supply of housing and are not the problem but part of the solution. The problem is land-use restrictions, such as limitations on multi-story buildings.

It is not a real supply shortage: number of families has not gone up and number of homes has not decreased. It is just increase of demand side, probably due to the printed new money and income increase. People could just live as before but their appetite has grown and it pushes demand up.

I think there are two issues here. First, housing is somewhat inelastic in that it takes multiple years to respond to a rise in demand and plan out and build new housing even with a reasonably fast permitting / approval process. Second, due to labor and materials costs, the price of housing in many areas is far below the cost to build new housing so housing prices will necessarily go up even with maximum build rates. This can create affordability difficulties for the lower rungs of income.

The assholes are the NIMBYs and politicians who prevent new construction. Supply and demand applies to housing too. The US is not a magical fairy place where supply and demand doesn’t work in real estate.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/opinion/democrats-blue-st...

Just look at housing prices in places HN wants to live that didn't increase their housing supply.