Where Is the Housing Shortage?

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which the US as a whole and its metropolitan areas face a housing shortage by comparing change in total housing units and total households from 2000 to 2020. Although various studies indicate that the nation has a shortage of anywhere from 2 million to 4 million units, Census data show little evidence of a shortage. Household formation did exceed the growth of households from 2010 to 2020, but that does not take into account the large surplus of housing produced during the previous decade. From 2000 to 2020, housing production exceeded the growth of households by 3.3 million units. Of the nation’s 381 metropolitan areas, only four experienced a housing shortage during this time, as did only 19 of the nation’s 526 micropolitan areas. Even though the stock of housing is adequate in most markets, the mismatch between the distribution of incomes and the distribution of housing prices results in housing affordability problems, especially for extremely low-income renters.