[dcolkitt]

No, the fundamental reason for lack of housing affordability is a lack of supply relative to demand. Since 2008 we've dramatically under built new housing units relative to household formation. Playing with inflation or interest rates may change who loses out, but it still doesn't change the fundamental problem that we don't have enough housing to go around.

[FooBarBizBazz]

This is one of the problems with rate hikes. They reduce production and investment. New home builds are down. Manufacturing is down. All of this is exactly the opposite of what we should want, which is low prices due not to a scarcity of money but to an abundance of wealth.

[imtringued]

The problem is people don't use the cheap money to build more. They are being showered with it and then laws prevent building housing. It looks like a money problem because money moves faster than real estate but this isn't a 2022 problem, it is a problem that has been creeping up since the 70s.

[llampx]

Exactly. Look in the recent Canada thread for an exhaustive discussion about this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34216118

Summary: Governments and local landowners/homeowners benefit from increasing prices, so they prevent homes from being built or for density to be increased in areas with existing homes and services. This causes supply not to be able to meet demand, which causes rising prices.

[kennethh]

The number of housing units in the United States has been growing year on year and in 2021, there were approximately 142 million housing units in the United States. 1.43 million is the average annual new house starts since 1959. Houses sold is around 6 million so only 25% of the sales are new houses. Lack of building is probalby no the main reason. If the interest rates was 8-10%+ a few million houses would come for sale. With low interrest rates many people would rather have more houses than they need to protect against inflation.