In a nutshell, the solution for housing affordability in the nation’s largest metros is simple: More housing needs to be built.
After analyzing seven years of data from the Census Bureau, Scott Beyer of Forbes writes that Dallas, New York City, and Houston have issued the most housing permits since 2010, with each giving out more than 273,000 (which is 100,000 more than Los Angeles, which issued the fourth-most permits).
These cities have had stable population growth, job growth, and home price increases since the recession. Dallas and Houston have the second and third cheapest median homes of the 11 largest metros, and the median home price in New York city has only risen by $38,000 since 2010, which is a considerably smaller increase than cities such as San Francisco ($305,000 increase during that time), Los Angeles ($155,000), and Boston ($92,000).
These statistics are glaring, and show that the urban housing affordability crisis, and its solution, is far simpler than many pundits suspect. … The Census data sheds light on the actual nature of the issue: some metros in America are building a LOT of housing. Other metros may think they are, but actually are not. And housing prices within given metros are either stabilizing or skyrocketing based on this decision.
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