America's housing shortage explained in one chart

Tldr; there's a housing shortage because... there are not enough houses being built
- and they're too lucrative to make them affordable.
- My question is, who's buying all the homes up? I mean we know the answer.
  
  Investors, and not just mega corporations, local investors are a major issue.
  We have collectively come to understand the idea that you can get free money by buying houses and renting them out. If you talk to any lay person and ask them how they'd spend a million dollars the most common answer seems to be "buy property"
  Our issue is in our collective minds, but the inertia of the idea means it will probably never be fixed unless there's a catastrophe
- Which is a silly conclusion... What's the point? The better question would be why isn't more housing being built? And I suspect the answer to that question is there is a vested interest in increasing that deficit.
  Whenever someone starts to conclude that housing is so expensive purely because there aren't enough homes, they often follow that up with pointing to construction costs. Which to me screams deregulation and wage complaints, two things an improving society should not be encouraging.

I'm the only person on my street actually in favor of the proposed multi-use housing/shopping complex a developer wants to build a block over from us. I can't change the minds of all these old people. I'm pretty sure we're just fucked until they all move out or pass on.
- I heard some pushback on a plan for a mixed use development in an abandoned office park. The person had zero to do with the property, lived in a completely different area. But didn't want it because "traffic". Like pushing those potential residents to live further away was somehow more beneficial for traffic than putting them close to it.
- We can just start our own municipalities somewhere. Where is the biggest question
  
  With blackjack and hookers!
- In fairness to your neighbours, it's probably hard to be on board when all they probably foresee is increased traffic and reduced property values.
  
  Mixed use land developments increase property values. My neighbors believe urban myths and lies, so I'm not particularly inclined to be any more fair to them than I would be to someone who believes that vaccines cause autism.
  https://masslandlords.net/gentle-density-increases-nearby-property-values-evidence-shows-contrary-to-popular-belief/
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-02/does-affordable-housing-lower-property-values
  I own a house here too, ya know. I don't share their misguided concerns. Yes there will be traffic. I believe we have reasonable options to mitigate that.
  But it looks like the rich, old NIMBYs are going to win this fight, and keep people locked out as always.
- I’m pretty sure we’re just fucked until they all move out or pass on.
  Most young people that support multi-use housing today will stop supporting it by the time they retire. It's not the today's old people that are against everything, it's all old people. The next generation will not be different.
  
  Lol, I'm not young. I'm pushing 50.
- Why are you in favor of it? They wanted to build one near me, and I think it would bring more people and more traffic into an otherwise quiet neighborhood. I think it would also take away part of the exclusivity of the neighborhood, and lower property values (or otherwise make them grow more slowly)
  
  So you're okay with the concept elsewhere just not in your backyard?
  
  Multi use land developments increase property values, and I would love to have some shops that I can walk to. Fuck suburbs. Fuck excluding people. I want housing density and actually walkable neighborhoods. YIMBY. Thanks.
  https://masslandlords.net/gentle-density-increases-nearby-property-values-evidence-shows-contrary-to-popular-belief/
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-02/does-affordable-housing-lower-property-values

"Could they build it? Yes. Will they build it? No," Gardner said, citing steep construction costs”
Aaaand let’s wrap this up, that’s all she wrote
- More like citing lower than 45°+ angle profits.

Also all the vacant housing. But mentioning that might make some real estate owners nervous.

I’m all for building new homes, but just posting data from Hines is pretty lazy journalism.

Planet Money had a good episode going into three of the reasons (boomers aging in place, zoning laws, and losing people/expertise in home building industries) https://www.npr.org/2021/07/30/1022827659/three-reasons-for-the-housing-shortage#:~:text=Today%20on%20the%20show%2C%20we,know%20how%20to%20build%20houses.

Data: Hines analysis of Census Bureau and Moody's data; Note: Population demand is a theoretical housing demand metric based on long-term household formation and homeownership rates by age cohort; Chart: Axios Visuals
very scientific
- If it's a common method used and has shown to be accurate then being consistent in your metric outweighs some flaws.
  
  I don't like artificial metrics constructed from other metrics without any explanation.

Fuckin hell, America's dwindling attention span demonstrated in one article 😂
Do yous get confused if an article has sentences more than ten words long? Does your love of guns come from an irrational fear of semicolons? 🙃