Hacker News Reader

Comment by enjo | Hacker News Reader

The United States has added 100 million people since 1995. The pace of building hasn't even come close to that. The best estimates I can find is that we've added about 30 million units in that same period. The answer to your question is: the people already there. The cost of housing has spiked because we've let supply get low after all.

View on HN

The Fed tracks this.

Housing units per person really has not moved much since 2000 either way. We're basically near the median for the 20-year period.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=j9kB

One big issue not stated in the graph however is that the amount of childless people and people living alone is up, so we require more housing to match changing preferences.

I can't help but notice that data doesn't go back very far.

It's a shame we can't compare to 1920, 1950 or 1970.

> shame we can't compare to 1920, 1950 or 1970

We only started collecting information on housing in 1940 [1]. That's why household data only go back that far [2].

[1] https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/overv...

[2] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families...

The lack of housing is not distributed equally over the country.

I sure wish they'd distribute less of it to my city

What? Where do you live that you have come to think that there’s too much new construction?

GP could be using a double negative. "Less lack of housing."

Correct. Just a tough crowd tonight I guess.

My wife and I are looking for a house, and the lack of options is extremely dispiriting.