[ericmay]

Never say never, but yes, agreed. And that shortage depending on how it’s calculated may be more pronounced if we look at where people plan to live in the future. Central Ohio where I live is on track to gain in population while the state as a whole loses population. A house in a rural county doesn’t necessarily count/help, even if it’s included in official “here are many houses we have” statistics.

Home builders, especially with a risk-free 4% return today, do not have any incentive to build “cheap” or “affordable” housing, and as material prices continue to increase because there are 330 million people in America who also want those resources, new builds will have to continue to increase in price and perhaps decrease in quality, depending on how much oil goes into the construction of the house. Home builders, absent clear evidence of industry collusion will simply increase their profitability and will not build ‘starter homes” or “affordable housing”.

We can address the issue in a few ways, for example removing artificially limiting zoning practices, generally speaking, or perhaps the elected government can just pay for cheaper housing, or we can craft good legislation.

But on its own I don’t see a good catalyst right now that will cause home prices to “correct”* without a treatment worse than the disease (economic depression or global war or something else that is otherwise catastrophic).

* The term “correction” is popular but misused. The current price of an asset is always correct. When an asset decreases in price, that decrease is no more correct than a corresponding increase in price.

[toomuchtodo]

Great points, great comment. An additional measure to solve for this would be by making remote work a protected labor right (assuming it does not overly burden the employer and such), so workers can move where the housing is, or the housing is cheap. But we'd rather let old, status seeking folks at the top of the corporate ladder "show workers who is in charge" and maintain control while workers get extracted from for higher than necessary rent or mortgage payments near an office (where housing is in demand but very slow for additional supply to come online, if it ever does at all).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39037589 ("HN: Remote work doesn't seem to affect productivity, Fed study finds")

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/nov/why-do-wf... ("Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis: Nearly half of people working from home — who moved to a different state — moved because of housing.")

People argue about paperclip maximizers that don't exist yet while being unaware of the one they live their lives in today.

[ericmay]

Thanks - back at you!