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by adam_arthur 1586 days ago
Total Households: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TTLHH

Total Housing Units: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ETOTALUSQ176N

Divide one by the other to get housing units per household. You can see ratio in 2020 is roughly the same as 2000.

You have to consider multifamily construction too (which can include SFH-like duplexes, or full apartment buildings). Housing is fungible to a certain extent. If rents fall, that will reduce demand for purchasing and vice versa.

Completions is a backwards looking metric. Look at pipeline, not completions to predict forward trajectory. Housing in pipeline now matches the 2000s peak, and looks to surpass the 70s peak within a few months
1 comments
pandaman 1586 days ago
Okay, so it does include rentals and the number seem pretty normal - the ratio of units to households will always stay close to 1.

And yes, the housing is fungible to an extent: the dearth of SFHs cause the price of SFHs to rocket and pushes the rest of the market up as the people who are priced out of SFHs can as well go and buy a condo or a townhouse.

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adam_arthur 1586 days ago
Yeah, but SFH aren't the only housing type appreciating. This theory doesn't really hold when you consider both Condos, inner city locales, rural locales etc have also experienced rapid price appreciation.

Rental or not doesn't really matter. Fundamentally people just need a place to live, and depending on locale will make the tradeoff between renting and buying. If rental stock doubles overnight, housing prices would decline too, as cost of a mortgage becomes relatively less appealing. In this sense it's fungible.

But it's true there may be some subset of people who would only buy SFH regardless of price

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pandaman 1586 days ago
>Yeah, but SFH aren't the only housing type appreciating. This theory doesn't really hold when you consider both Condos, inner city locales, rural locales etc have also experienced rapid price appreciation.

What theory? That people who are priced out of SFH buy condos, townhomes and other type of housing? What do they do, keep renting and enjoy 30% yoy rent bumps instead?

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adam_arthur 1586 days ago
No, I think we are in agreement. I may have misread your post.

People priced out of one housing type will bleed into others.

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