Some programs could ease housing burdens for hundreds or thousands of households, but Congress has only approved a miserly amount of money for them.
Is the housing shortage merely awful, or jaw-droppingly catastrophic? Depends on who you ask. The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies estimates that there’s a deficit of 1.5 million dwellings. Realtor.com says that we’re 2.3 million units short. Zillow says it’s 4.3 million, and the National Association of Realtors guesses we’re shy 5 million to 6 million homes.
Two main causes for the housing shortage In five years, the median resale price of an existing home went up 51%, to $406,700 in July 2023, according to the NAR. Prices are too high for many would-be buyers. In early 2022, Freddie Mac FMCC, -3.39% polled Gen Z adults , and 34% of them agreed that “homeownership at any point seems out of reach financially.” Mortgage rates have zoomed since that poll was conducted, making homes even more unaffordable.
Cities overwhelmingly zone land for single-family houses, effectively banning duplexes and apartments. Minimum lot sizes mean builders can construct only so many houses on a block, so they build expensive homes to maximize profits. Feds need to be firmer with local governments Elected local leaders set the rules that drive up the cost of housing in communities blue and red. Several states, from California to Connecticut and Montana to Maine, have responded by restricting local governments’ land-use powers in order to promote multifamily and affordable housing.
Playing hardball might yield results with housing, Dworkin says. “This is about having apartment buildings in communities, and duplexes or quadplexes, and the failure of communities to address the political pressure of residents who say, ‘I’ve got mine, no one else gets theirs,’” he says.
Making borrowing easier for developers The other major way to stimulate the construction of affordable apartments is by making it easier and faster for builders to borrow money to fund their projects. HUD has come up with two solutions.
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