Home construction per household is now at its lowest levels in nearly six decades, according to researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. This isn't just a problem in San Francisco or New York, where home prices and rents have gone sky-high. It is also a problem in midsize, fast-growing cities farther inland, like Des Moines, Iowa; Durham, N.C.; and Boise, Idaho. In Boise, an analysis by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development showed there is a demand for more than 10 times the number of homes being built right now.
A fascinating AEI dataset shows that entry-level houses are worth on average 50% more than they were at the beginning of 2012. That's a significantly faster appreciation than the "move-up" segment of the market, which has risen by 38% over the same timeframe.
Denver, Seattle and San Francisco have seen entry-level homes rise in price by more than 75% since 2012, while Las Vegas prices have risen 89%.
Context: The cost of building any kind of housing has never been higher, thanks to a confluence of factors. President Trump has slapped tariffs on Canadian lumber (which remain in place even under USMCA)
Affordable housing isn’t affordable to build," the National Apartment Association's Greg Brown tells Axios. As America urbanizes, the apartment shortage is growing even starker than the shortage of houses.
Rising house prices also exacerbate Nimbyism. The more your house is worth, the harder you're likely to fight against upzoning initiatives that increase the supply of housing in your neighborhood. The fewer the units being built, the more that supply constraint pushes prices up in a vicious cycle (that's great for existing homeowners' wealth).
https://www.axios.com/us-housing-shortage-crisis-prices-17eba84d-6ad4-4860-9fa1-34b00b22e08f.html 