America's housing shortage explained in one chart

Veedem@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 56 points –
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Tldr; there's a housing shortage because... there are not enough houses being built

My question is, who's buying all the homes up? I mean we know the answer.

Investors, and not just mega corporations, local investors are a major issue.

We have collectively come to understand the idea that you can get free money by buying houses and renting them out. If you talk to any lay person and ask them how they'd spend a million dollars the most common answer seems to be "buy property"

Our issue is in our collective minds, but the inertia of the idea means it will probably never be fixed unless there's a catastrophe

Which is a silly conclusion... What's the point? The better question would be why isn't more housing being built? And I suspect the answer to that question is there is a vested interest in increasing that deficit.

Whenever someone starts to conclude that housing is so expensive purely because there aren't enough homes, they often follow that up with pointing to construction costs. Which to me screams deregulation and wage complaints, two things an improving society should not be encouraging.