Just how widespread is the housing shortage?

[Rasulis]

According to this article, the US housing shortage is more wide-ranging than just the coastal markets. Instead it stretches from pricey locales such as California and Massachusetts to more surprising places, such as Arizona and Utah.

The article stated that even Arizona and Utah have built too little housing in the last 15 years. Southern Nevada has about two month supply of homes for sale. Las Vegas home prices rise 11 percent.

U.S. homebuilding has increased, but the single-family segment is still pretty weak. It fell 3.7% in March 2018. The biggest surge is in multi-family housing which went up by 14.4% in March.

A few reasons why builders are not building despite the rising demand and home prices across the US. It is a rather interesting phenomena. At one point, there were several builders in the SP500 list. There are none left now.

Nationwide prepared a report on the Health of Housing Markets (4th quarter 2017). Surprisingly, 5 out of the 10 markets appearing on the “unhealthy”, as in overheated, list are in Texas. They include Waco, Victoria, Dallas-Plano-Irving, San Angelo and Fort Worth-Arlington. Others include Anchorage, Alaska; Rapid City, South Dakota; Bismarck, North Dakota; Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana; and New Orleans-Metairie, Louisiana.

[Kujako]

Don't worry, the housing markets should crash again in the next year or so as the new tax plan kicks in.

[Jayburner]

I know they don't build apartment buildings anymore in Toronto. Everything is expensive as fuck here.

[Theodarzna]

According to this article, the US housing shortage is more wide-ranging than just the coastal markets. Instead it stretches from pricey locales such as California and Massachusetts to more surprising places, such as Arizona and Utah.

The article stated that even Arizona and Utah have built too little housing in the last 15 years. Southern Nevada has about two month supply of homes for sale. Las Vegas home prices rise 11 percent.

U.S. homebuilding has increased, but the single-family segment is still pretty weak. It fell 3.7% in March 2018. The biggest surge is in multi-family housing which went up by 14.4% in March.

A few reasons why builders are not building despite the rising demand and home prices across the US. It is a rather interesting phenomena. At one point, there were several builders in the SP500 list. There are none left now.

Nationwide prepared a report on the Health of Housing Markets (4th quarter 2017). Surprisingly, 5 out of the 10 markets appearing on the “unhealthy”, as in overheated, list are in Texas. They include Waco, Victoria, Dallas-Plano-Irving, San Angelo and Fort Worth-Arlington. Others include Anchorage, Alaska; Rapid City, South Dakota; Bismarck, North Dakota; Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana; and New Orleans-Metairie, Louisiana.

In Western States a big issue is ultimately water shortages, it is an open question how we house so many with persistant centuries long drought cycles. The other is our commitment to fight climate change doesn't square with never ending growth and sprawl.

[Rasulis]

Don't worry, the housing markets should crash again in the next year or so as the new tax plan kicks in.

If you open the Nationwide Report, click on the 2008 and 2009 quarterly reports and watch the map turns crimson red.

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In Western States a big issue is ultimately water shortages, it is an open question how we house so many with persistant centuries long drought cycles. The other is our commitment to fight climate change doesn't square with never ending growth and sprawl.

Your comment remind me of an interesting article I read last year.

Call it the Anti-Drought: Water Officials Hope to Drive Up Water Usage

In a jarring contrast to conditions during the drought, the San Diego County Water Authority is actually trying to drive up demand for its water.

As recently as the first months of this year, Californians were asked to conserve water. Well, they did. And they still are. Now, that’s a problem.

Demand for water is low. In San Diego, it’s so low that drinking water is just sitting in the main pipeline that delivers water from hundreds of miles away to the southern half of the county. Typically demand for water is highest during the summer.

When water sits around, particularly in the summer heat, it stagnates and can become undrinkable.

To keep water moving, the Water Authority’s staff is talking about ginning up demand for water by offering incentives to several water agencies, including the city of San Diego’s water department. This wouldn’t necessarily result in profligate water use, because the Water Authority may just want agencies, like the city water department, to switch from the cheaper water they have stored in their own reservoirs to more expensive water that the Water Authority sells them.

[Milchshake]

According to this article, the US housing shortage is more wide-ranging than just the coastal markets. Instead it stretches from pricey locales such as California and Massachusetts to more surprising places, such as Arizona and Utah.

The article stated that even Arizona and Utah have built too little housing in the last 15 years. Southern Nevada has about two month supply of homes for sale. Las Vegas home prices rise 11 percent.

U.S. homebuilding has increased, but the single-family segment is still pretty weak. It fell 3.7% in March 2018. The biggest surge is in multi-family housing which went up by 14.4% in March.

A few reasons why builders are not building despite the rising demand and home prices across the US. It is a rather interesting phenomena. At one point, there were several builders in the SP500 list. There are none left now.

Nationwide prepared a report on the Health of Housing Markets (4th quarter 2017). Surprisingly, 5 out of the 10 markets appearing on the “unhealthy”, as in overheated, list are in Texas. They include Waco, Victoria, Dallas-Plano-Irving, San Angelo and Fort Worth-Arlington. Others include Anchorage, Alaska; Rapid City, South Dakota; Bismarck, North Dakota; Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana; and New Orleans-Metairie, Louisiana.

Well at the end of the day, landowners still have the final say. And there's virtually no penalty for keeping land undeveloped or vacant. Even municipalities that do levy penalties for dilapidated or vacant structures, the fines are laughable, and enforcement even moreso. There's no end of special tax vehicles to minimize the hit on vacant properties.

Combine this with the changing nature of land ownership. There's been massive consolidation during the era of incredibly low low interest rates. There's far fewer mom-and-pops holding a lot as an investment. Its mostly investment groups or other funds with much larger holdings. There's less pressure for them to develop until they see the appropriate returns. It's verging on being cartel like how they can manipulate supply.

During my few years in design and building in SF. The biggest fights I saw between the city and the developers was over how many Low Income or Affordable units were to be allocated within a single development. From the construction side, the differences between building an affordable unit versus a full market unit is marginal. But the difference in profits for the landowner are huge. There were a few cases of the developer holding a project hostage to extract fewer affordable units from the city. This was after they had broken ground. City government had to cave, they're subject to political pressure.


Fixing the housing shortage will involve rethinking how property ownership works. Dunno the remedies of Late Stage Capitalism, but I imagine none of them are pretty.

[Najnaj]

I know they don't build apartment buildings anymore in Toronto. Everything is expensive as fuck here.

Our condo went from 300k to 800k in 3 years.....

[The Stormbringer]

Where I live they're still building stupidly expensive apartment complexes for rich and stupid college students, even though there are already apartment complexes that are being seriously under-utilized. We're talking $4,000 a month for TWO PEOPLE in a city that only has 120k when students are here, in the Mid-west. It's insane.

[Torto]

The best way to deal with a housing shortage is to allow millions of migrants to walk into the country to put even more pressure on the lack of housing so you end up with shanty towns.

Lefty logic.

[Calfredd]

The best way to deal with a housing shortage is to allow millions of migrants to walk into the country to put even more pressure on the lack of housing so you end up with shanty towns.

Lefty logic.

Sure buddy, whatever you say.

[shimerra]

herp a derp a hingle dingle understanding's hard*shits on keyboard smiling proudly(

Torto logic.

I see you're doing your usual right wing victim complex shtick.

[P for Pancetta]

The best way to deal with a housing shortage is to allow millions of migrants to walk into the country to put even more pressure on the lack of housing so you end up with shanty towns.

Lefty logic.

Poor migrants generally don't have the money to enter the housing market, It's rich migrants (who don't come in the millions) who buy property as an investment instead of living there or even renting it out which causes a lot of problems in many urban areas.

[Torto]

I see you're doing your usual right wing victim complex shtick.

And yet you can't bring yourself to tell me I'm wrong. Funny that.

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Poor migrants generally don't have the money to enter the housing market, It's rich migrants (who don't come in the millions) who buy property as an investment instead of living there or even renting it out which causes a lot of problems in many urban areas.

Rich or poor is irrelevant, they all have to live somewhere. The benefit of rich migrants is they can afford to build or buy their own house.

[Gorgodeus]

There is no housing shortage except for the fact that developers and cities do not want to build affordable housing for the lower middle class. By not building affordable housing, they can focus on building larger homes with inflated prices due to the above.

[Daedius]

I see a ton of places that are empty and frequently get "housing crisis" thrown about...

[Macaquerie]

I see a ton of places that are empty and frequently get "housing crisis" thrown about...

Just like any other asset, housing depreciates the more you use it, so the best way to maintain the value of your investment is just to let it sit there empty.

[Miyagie]

The best way to deal with a housing shortage is to allow millions of migrants to walk into the country to put even more pressure on the lack of housing so you end up with shanty towns.

Lefty logic.

Aktually this increasing the housing in a country when you look at the EU.
Politics blow billions on rents for shit flats and the owner gets a alot money and he can buy himself a villa.
Or more flats for immigrants so he get even more money. We had alot of this cases in germany, empty big building got rented for millions of € and in the end 10 immigrants live there. (some are even owned by politics)

[Rasulis]

Well at the end of the day, landowners still have the final say. And there's virtually no penalty for keeping land undeveloped or vacant. Even municipalities that do levy penalties for dilapidated or vacant structures, the fines are laughable, and enforcement even moreso. There's no end of special tax vehicles to minimize the hit on vacant properties.

Combine this with the changing nature of land ownership. There's been massive consolidation during the era of incredibly low low interest rates. There's far fewer mom-and-pops holding a lot as an investment. Its mostly investment groups or other funds with much larger holdings. There's less pressure for them to develop until they see the appropriate returns. It's verging on being cartel like how they can manipulate supply.

During my few years in design and building in SF. The biggest fights I saw between the city and the developers was over how many Low Income or Affordable units were to be allocated within a single development. From the construction side, the differences between building an affordable unit versus a full market unit is marginal. But the difference in profits for the landowner are huge. There were a few cases of the developer holding a project hostage to extract fewer affordable units from the city. This was after they had broken ground. City government had to cave, they're subject to political pressure.


Fixing the housing shortage will involve rethinking how property ownership works. Dunno the remedies of Late Stage Capitalism, but I imagine none of them are pretty.

That and the land value in California coastal cities are some of the biggest issues with building affordable housing. We can take a look at data from Lincoln Institute of Land Policy from 1st quarter 2016.

At one end of the spectrum we have a city like Birmingham, where the value of a 180k house is broken down into 166k on the structure and 14k on the land.

A home valued at 272k in Chicago is 240k structure and 32k land.

Dallas, home value 262k; 185k structure and 77k land.

Houston, home value 250k; 188k structure and 62k land.

San Diego, home value 657k; 221k structure and 436k land.

Los Angeles, home value 684k; 200k structure and 484k land.

Oakland, home value 870k; 250k structure and 620k land.

San Francisco, home value 1,346,489; 257,243 structure and 1,089,246 land.

San Jose, home value 1,212,272; 278,519 structure and 933,754 land.

That land value makes it very hard to build affordable housing along the coast.

[NihilSustinet]

there is no housing shortage. the banks own hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes that they would rather sit on than use them for any sort of actual purpose.

[Rasulis]

there is no housing shortage. the banks own hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes that they would rather sit on than use them for any sort of actual purpose.

You have the data to back that statement?