Human geography changes over time. People move for economics, relationships, preferences, etc. There are shortages in the destinations and vacant properties in the origins. (Destination populations don’t necessarily change much either, but that’s because population is bounded above by housing capacity… question is what would population be if they made room, how competitive it is to get or keep a slot).
Household size also changes. People are forming families later or not at all, so spending more time living alone. Empty nesters are staying in the houses they raised children in instead of downsizing, for various reasons, but especially a lack of smaller places to downsize to. The mix of apartments, houses, townhouses, and bedroom counts needs to be flexible and respond to population over time.
It’s simply not the case that the living arrangements that were in place when we froze everything in amber just keep working for us indefinitely into the future. Needs change!
The population that matters is the population that would otherwise be FTHBs, roughly 25-35 year olds. That population has grown like crazy as Millennials come of age. Most of the pandemic deaths were Silent Generation, and many of them were already in nursing homes, not occupying detached SFHs.
Things will change in ~10 years as baby boomers start dying off (or at least vacating their homes for senior living) en masse and are replaced by the relatively tiny Zoomer generation, but things are going to be tight for the next decade or so.
Household size also changes. People are forming families later or not at all, so spending more time living alone. Empty nesters are staying in the houses they raised children in instead of downsizing, for various reasons, but especially a lack of smaller places to downsize to. The mix of apartments, houses, townhouses, and bedroom counts needs to be flexible and respond to population over time.
It’s simply not the case that the living arrangements that were in place when we froze everything in amber just keep working for us indefinitely into the future. Needs change!