zlacker

USA population has increased ~10% in the last 20 years. Why has that small increase in population caused a humongous lack of housing? It feels like something else is going on other than "we need to increase supply by 10% but can't"

>>ericmc+(OP)
Housing supply and demand isn’t uniformly distributed across the United States. When we say “housing shortage” we only mean in popular places to live.

>>seanmc+z
So where have housing prices fallen?

>>stormf+ss
Places you don’t care about, like Jackson Ms, Detroit, Toledo, Gary. Recently, we see falling housing prices in Las Vegas and Phoenix, although they are probably ahead of where they were before the pandemic.

>>ericmc+(OP)
As Sean mentioned, not only have we increased in total population we have also changed where we are living. Lots of small towns have seen their populations decrease, with some completely disappearing. Large neighborhoods of cities like Detroit and elsewhere essentially emptied. We need more housing and we need to shift housing resources to where the demand is.

There are loads of cheap houses in the USA. They're just in places where most people don't want to live.

Here's a cheap house:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/420-Tyler-St-Gary-IN-4640...

The commute to Southern California is pretty killer though.

>>stormf+ss
in the asset bubble leading to the 2008 credit collapse, the only area in the continental USA that had decreasing housing prices in large areas was .. the Ohio Valley. (likely plenty of niche areas too but that is what stuck out)