The Difficulties Impacting Rural Housing Markets

In rural America, home to nearly one-fifth of the country's population, affordable housing is harder to find than in the nation's big cities and suburbs.

Robert Dietz, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, says that most new construction going up post-recession has been in the 15 largest metros, and that despite lower land costs, single-family home construction is sluggish in rural areas. Dietz estimates that only 11 percent of new single-family homes will be built outside of urban and suburban areas, and that those will be expensive, custom-built homes, or vacation homes, per Realtor.com.

Population decline means that no one is investing in these small towns, whether it's to build houses or offer mortgages. Employers aren't inclined to move to depressed areas and, of course, the reason that people left in the first place was a lack of good jobs. "Rural areas across the country have not recovered from the Great Recession as well as bigger cities [have]," says Bob Rapoza, executive secretary of the National Rural Housing Coalition, a Washington, DC–based membership organization. "There are fewer people who want to live there." 

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