In an exclusive nearly 2,000-word study, the New York Times is reporting that the nation’s housing shortage is no longer confined to just the expensive enclaves of the East and West coast.
The problem is now truly national in scope, with shortages appearing everywhere from the Midwest to growing areas of Texas, and most of the Western states.
“Today more families in the middle of American who could once count on becoming homeowners can’t be so confident anymore,” the paper reports. “And communities that long relied on their relatively affordable housing to draw new residents can no longer be sure of that advantage.”
Using statistics gathered by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, the paper estimates that currently the nation needs around 3.8 million housing units to keep up with demographic demands, a figure that has doubled in the last decade.
Not only has the supply issue gotten worse in most states, as well as in the District of Columbia, but some 75% of the nation’s metropolitan areas are also feeling the crunch.
In a list of 15 cities that had enough housing in 2012, but are now lacking, eight were in the West, with the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro area going from a nearly 2% housing surplus a decade ago to a 5.8% deficit today.
Similarly, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho went from a 0.3% surplus in 2012 to a 5.3% deficit.
Trying to trace the roots of the shortage, the paper notes that the nation’s home-building industry suffered a loss of around 1.5 million workers during the Great Recession and has been lacking enough workers ever since.
Additional factors: the rising cost of land and building supplies.
Matters are only made more complex by community restrictions: “Local residents often oppose new housing,” while “local governments require development fees, studies and public meetings that drag out construction and drive up its costs.”
The article notes that in the 1920s the federal government actively encouraged local communities to get rid of zoning laws that tended to make housing projects more expensive.
“Members of Congress of both parties have increasingly called for such an idea, in which the federal government would give priority for grants to local communities that ease zoning restrictions or build denser housing,” the New York Times study concludes.
By Garry Boulard
