A DEEP DIVE INTO THE U.S. HOUSING AFFORDABILITY CRISIS
Working Outline
- Defining housing affordability
- Is there a housing affordability crisis in the U.S.?
- The answer is probably that some locales are suffering more than others, so this outline proceeds with the assumption that there is a “crisis” in some places and not in others in the U.S.
- Causes of the crises
- What has been tried
Questions to Address
- What is the “Housing Affordability Crisis”? Is housing really becoming unaffordable?
- How does housing affordability compare in rentals versus owned homes? What governs pricing in both markets?
- If housing really is becoming unaffordable, what have we done to try and stop it? What has failed and been successful? What can be done?
Topics to Cover
- NIMBY vs. YIMBY, Zoning
- Arlington County, Virginia’s EHO and Missing Middle
- Houston, TX (lack of zoning)
- Rent control
- Subsidized housing
- Affordable housing requirements
- Mt. Laurel decision, NJ
Research
Like most things, determining whether or not housing is unaffordable for many people is not very straightforward. Determining whether it's a crisis or not is probably even less so, but it's also probably not important. What is important is determining if it's a problem.
Defining housing affordability
What does it mean to be able to “afford housing”? What does it mean to be able to afford anything, for that matter? Well…
- To afford something means literally “to be able to pay for something” (https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=afford), but that definition isn't all that helpful.
- Perhaps what would be more helpful is looking at the cost of housing divided by income. This can be applied to both renters and owners. It might be the case that all sorts of expenses and their ratio to income are astronomically high but that might indicate that there are other affordability problems too, or maybe that wages are too low. But for the purposes of this research, we only want to look at housing.
Links
- https://nlihc.org/explore-issues/why-we-care/problem
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Mac
- https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US
- https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/new-data-shows-us-renter-cost-burdens-easing-but-still-elevated
- https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/home-price-income-ratio-reaches-record-high-0
- https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_092214.html
- https://www.visualcapitalist.com/median-house-prices-vs-income-us/
- https://www.gao.gov/blog/affordable-housing-crisis-grows-while-efforts-increase-supply-fall-short