Construction workers build homes on a lot in Vaughan, a suburb with an active real estate market, in Toronto, Canada, May 24, 2017.The National Association of Realtors stressed the urgency of addressing the housing shortage in a report.Building would need to increase by 60% to make up for the lack of available housing, it said.The severe housing shortage in the US — caused by an underinvestment in housing construction — has led to spiking rent and home prices, and an"affordability crisis.
The report noted that while housing stock grew at an annual rate of 1.7% from 1968 to 2000, it grew by an annual rate of 1% over the past two decades, and just 0.7% over the past decade, resulting in an underbuilding gap of over 5.5 million units in the past 20 years. The lack of available housing isn't the only issue. Given the tight supply, the prices on available housing are increasing, putting homeownership out of reach for many. So much so, in fact, that the number of adults living at home with parents more than doubled from 2000 to 2020, increasing by 4 million people, and even before the pandemic, nearly one quarter of renters were"severely burdened," or spending over half their income on housing, according to the report.
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