Housing Shortage Continues to Strain Affordability

The housing market continues to face affordability issues, largely due to the ongoing housing shortage. According to Fast Company, citing recent data from Freddie Mac, the U.S. housing market is short by 3.7 million housing units, with 150.7 million units needed to meet the shortage. Currently, there are just 147 million units. Although this shortage has slightly improved from the 3.8 million gap reported in late 2020, it remains considerably larger than the 2.5 million shortfall estimated in mid-2018.

“The root cause of decreased housing affordability is the fact that housing supply has not increased enough to match demand. Inadequate housing supply leads homeowners and renters to bid up the sale price and rent of available housing, which puts a squeeze on affordability,” wrote Freddie Mac economists in their report. Read more