America’s (Avoidable) Housing Crisis
Why Homeownership Became Harder to Achieve
February 2023
Script
Click to reveal bonus content (fun facts and additional insights) within script.
Let’s say you come into big money. What do you buy first?
For a lot of people, priority one … might be a nice piece of real estate.
And, depending on your budget, you’ve got options.
For just $427,000 we could get you into this gem in Seattle.i Although, fair warning: The air is toxic. And there’s five feet of standing water. And the roof’s about to collapse.
In the market for something a little pricier? You could land this beauty outside of Boston for $2.3 million.ii Although it was built before the Civil War. And needs to be demolished.
And for the real high rollers — are you ready for this? — $15 million … will get you this acre of dirt in Silicon Valley. iii
Those are all real listings from recent years. And while it’s easy to laugh at how difficult it’s become to afford a house in those places … your neighborhood might be next.
[OPENING SEQUENCE]
Time was, there was a pretty simple formula for chasing the American dream: Get yourself a good job, maybe start a family — or at least, y’know, get a dog — and buy yourself a home.
These days? Well … two out of three ain’t bad, right?
Government data shows that in recent years, homeownership amongst people between the ages of 25-34 — the age range in which people normally buy their first house — has fallen to its lowest level in decades.iv And while there are a lot of factors at play there, research shows that the single biggest one is the decline in the construction of new homes.v
Here's the deal: Factors like restrictive zoning, costly and time-consuming permit approvals, and even activists opposed to their neighborhoods changing has made it incredibly difficult for some cities to build enough homes for the people who want to live there.
And if you look at a map of the parts of America with the biggest housing shortagesvi and then a map of the ones that have the highest housing costs,vii you’ll see that fewer homes means much higher prices. And as a result of those shortages, renters see price increases too.
Now, there’s a few lessons you could take from this.
First, if you’re on a budget, stay away from the coasts, try to avoid New York City, and whatever you do, for the love of God, do not go near California.
Second, if you’re already in one of those places but trying to get into your starter home … consider a move. You wouldn’t be alone.
New York City is the leading supplier of people moving to Miami. Los Angeles is the leading supplier of people moving to Phoenix. And San Francisco is the leading supplier of people moving to Sacramentoviii — which is a place that only seems affordable if you’ve been living in San Francisco.
But here’s the bad news — and you may see this one coming — when you look at the housing markets that have seen the most dramatic increases in price over the last decade, you’ll find places like … Phoenix, and Miami, and Sacramento.ix
Because here’s the most important lesson: If you don’t build enough houses for the people who want to live somewhere, the nice, affordable city you want to live in today … may just be another smothering, expensive one tomorrow.
In Phoenix, for instance, the metro area had nearly two percent more housing than it needed as recently as 2012. By 2019, however, with the influx of new residents, it had nearly six percent less than it needed.x And that number may sound small … but it’s a shortage of about 100,000 homes.
So, how do we break this cycle? After all, most of us don’t want to spend the rest of our lives moving from city to city just to have a lower mortgage. We have jobs and families. Many of us like the places we live. How can we make our own cities more affordable?
Well, one huge step would be easing restrictive zoning regulations. Because, while any given city only has so much space, zoning often limits how much you can do with that space.
In Los Angeles, for instance, it’s been estimated that 93 percent of the city’s capacity to house people has already been taken up.xi Part of the reason? Because 74 percent of L.A.’s residential land is zoned only for single-family homes.xii You can’t build condos or an apartment building, let alone a high-rise. Which is part of the reason the Manhattan skyline looks like this while the Los Angeles skyline looks like this.
Not that your city has to look like Manhattan to thrive, by the way. Adding more housing can mean relaxing zoning to allow things like duplexes or “granny flats” (small, apartment-style structures that can be built next to an existing home). A few years ago, when California loosened its laws to allow more granny flats, their construction increased tenfold.xiii
Beyond zoning, there’s also lots of housing that doesn’t get built because the permitting process makes it too expensive and time-consuming. One report, for instance, found that getting approval to build apartments or other multi-family housing in San Francisco takes an average of over two and a half yearsxiv — which is such a burden that many people won’t even bother … because, even after all that time, the city may still just tell you “nope.”
And one other problem, of course, is that, in many communities, neighbors can block new development simply because they don’t want their neighborhoods to change — which, in practice, often means they have the power to keep younger generations from buying a house at all ... even if that’s not their intention.
So, yes, America has a housing problem. But the good news is we know how to fix it.
And if we’re successful, who knows how much we can bring down prices. There may even come a day when you can get a dirt lot in Silicon Valley for 10 million ... tops.
Sources
- "Seattle Home Too Dangerous to Enter Sells for $427,000 After ‘Insane’ Bidding War" (Mike Rosenberg) — Seattle Times
- "Dilapidated 'Candidate for Demolition' Sells for $2.3 Million in Cambridge, Massachusetts" — WCBV Boston
- "1-Acre Dirt Lot in Palo Alto on the Market for $15 Million" (Alexa Mae Asperin) — KRON San Francisco
- Housing Supply: A Growing Deficit — Freddie Mac
- Ibid.
- "The Housing Shortage Isn’t Just a Coastal Crisis Anymore" (Emily Badger, Eve Washington) — New York Times
- "How Can Government Make Housing More Affordable?" (Jenny Schuetz) — Brookings Institution
- "A Record Share of Homebuyers Relocate as High Prices, Mortgage Rates Push Them Toward More Affordable Areas" (Dana Anderson) — Redfin
- Home Price Appreciation Index and Months' Remaining Inventory — American Enterprise Institute
- "The Housing Shortage Isn’t Just a Coastal Crisis Anymore" (Emily Badger, Eve Washington) — New York Times
- "Cities Start to Question an American Ideal: A House With a Yard on Every Lot" (Emily Badger, Quoctrung Bui) — New York Times
- "Single-Family Zoning in Greater Los Angeles" (Stephen Menendian, Samir Gambhir, Chih-Wei Hsu) — University of California, Berkeley
- "How California Set Off a Backyard Apartment Boom" (Kriston Capps) — Bloomberg
- "Examining Entitlement in California to Inform Policy and Process: Advancing Social Equity in Housing Development Patterns" (Moira O'Neill, Eric Biber, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, Nicholas Marantz) — Comprehensive Assessment of Land Use Entitlements Study, p. 72
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Sources
- Seattle Times
"Seattle Home Too Dangerous to Enter Sells for $427,000 After ‘Insane’ Bidding War" (Mike Rosenberg)
- WCBV Boston
"Dilapidated 'Candidate for Demolition' Sells for $2.3 Million in Cambridge, Massachusetts"
- KRON San Francisco
"1-Acre Dirt Lot in Palo Alto on the Market for $15 Million" (Alexa Mae Asperin)
- Freddie Mac
Housing Supply: A Growing Deficit - New York Times
"The Housing Shortage Isn’t Just a Coastal Crisis Anymore" (Emily Badger, Eve Washington)
- Brookings Institution
"How Can Government Make Housing More Affordable?" (Jenny Schuetz)
- Redfin
"A Record Share of Homebuyers Relocate as High Prices, Mortgage Rates Push Them Toward More Affordable Areas" (Dana Anderson)
- American Enterprise Institute
Home Price Appreciation Index and Months' Remaining Inventory
- New York Times
"The Housing Shortage Isn’t Just a Coastal Crisis Anymore" (Emily Badger, Eve Washington)
- New York Times
"Cities Start to Question an American Ideal: A House With a Yard on Every Lot" (Emily Badger, Quoctrung Bui)
- University of California, Berkeley
"Single-Family Zoning in Greater Los Angeles" (Stephen Menendian, Samir Gambhir, Chih-Wei Hsu)
- Bloomberg
"How California Set Off a Backyard Apartment Boom" (Kriston Capps)
- Comprehensive Assessment of Land Use Entitlements Study
"Examining Entitlement in California to Inform Policy and Process: Advancing Social Equity in Housing Development Patterns" (Moira O'Neill, Eric Biber, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, Nicholas Marantz), p. 72
Delve Deeper
Learn more with a sampling of expert analysis and opinion from a wide variety of perspectives.
Article(s):
- "More Housing is Coming — But the National Shortage Will Persist" (The Pew Charitable Trusts)
- "Cancel Zoning" (The Atlantic)
- "The YIMBY War Breaking Out on the Left" (Intelligence)
- "The Unbuildable American Home" (National Review)
- "Twilight of the NIMBY" (New York Times)
- "Housing Delayed is Housing Denied" (Sightline Institute)
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