One thing that I'm not seeing mentioned in any capacity in the comments on this HN page is role of institutional investors. Prior to 2008 'single family homes' did not exist as an asset class that the asset management companies - Blackstone, etc. - were able to invest their client's/investor's money into. Long story short, the Savings & Loan implosion of the 1980s in the United States soured investor's money on SFHs. But when 2008 rolled around asset prices were depressed; the banks were flush with cash thanks to a bailout bonanza, and thus began the bulk purchasing of residential real estate by asset management firms.

Read it from the horse's mouth, Redfin: in Q3 2021 investors bought 18% of single-family homes sold in the United States. 1 in 5. https://www.redfin.com/news/investor-home-purchases-q3-2021/

In 2016, 2017, 2018 we were averaging around 50,000 to 60,000 homes being bought each quarter by institutional investors. Then, when the pandemic fun bucks got released (and I'm not talking about the $1200 'relief' checks that went out) we were looking at 80,000 to 90,000 homes bought by institution investors each quarter in Q2 2021 and Q3 2021, respectively.

Add in Airbnb / the short-term rental markets decimating housing stock in many cities and countries, plus intentionally restrictive zoning ordinances in the US and in Canada, and it's no wonder that North America's housing market looks the way it does in 2022.

Also from that Redfin article: > Investors Have the Highest Market Share in Atlanta, Phoenix > >In Atlanta, nearly one-third (32%) of homes that sold in the third quarter were purchased by investors—the highest share of the 40 U.S. metropolitan areas Redfin analyzed. Next came Phoenix (31.7%), Charlotte, NC (31.5%), Jacksonville, FL (28.3%) and Miami (28.1%). > > Atlanta also saw the largest year-over-year gain, with investor market share rising to 32% in the third quarter from 12.9% a year earlier (+19.1 ppts). The second-biggest jump was in Charlotte (+18.2 ppts), followed by Phoenix (17.7 ppts), Jacksonville (+15.2 ppts) and Las Vegas (+14.6 ppts).

I'm curious (and hopeful) to see how the Canadian situation plays out. I hope that increased enforcement of antimoney laundering laws will also result in a return of many thousands of single-family housing units to the market. If the Canada law works well it would be encouraging to see it applied in the United States with additional funding at the federal level for the construction of dense apartment housing in cities near transportation hubs as well dense housing in suburbs/exurbs with the creation of mini walkable downtowns in those denser pockets.