While the labor market as a whole has improved over recent years, home construction lags behind.
New research from the National Association of Realtors, via RISMedia, says that metro areas are experiencing insufficient new home building, housing shortages and price growth. Through a study of new-home construction, NAR determined that homebuilding activity for all housing types is underperforming in about two-thirds of the metro areas it analyzed.
And with cities adding more jobs, the gap between housing starts and employment has gotten larger. Last year, the ratio of single-family permits to employment moved to 3.7.
The cities with the worst ratios of single-family home building to available jobs are San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, New York and Miami.