The housing shortage is worse than ever—and will take a decade of record construction to fix
Low supply and high demand will continue to frustrate aspiring homeowners, according to a pair of new reports and data released Wednesday, throwing cold water on short-term positives like the declining price of lumber following a year of surging demand and prices.... [+]Far too few homes have been built for the number of people who want them, according to a report released WednesdayThe U.S.
To make up the shortage, the NAR report says the U.S. would have to build 2.1 million homes each year for a decade—more than it built each year during the housing boom of the mid-2000s. New data released by the federal government Wednesday showed little progress toward alleviating the shortage: New permits for buildingBuilders started on 3.6% more new homes than the month before, the report said, but analysts cited by MarketWatchThe supply problem isn’t limited to new homes: There are fewer existing homes up for sale, too, according to a report released Wednesday“[W]e’ll need to do something dramatic to close this gap,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, in.