The U.S. has an astounding housing problem.
Specifically, there are too few homes for too many people, creating a classic supply and demand imbalance that’s driving up costs. About 20% of Americans say they will never be able to afford a down payment, increasing homelessness, and straining municipal infrastructure.
The numbers are bleak.
According to Zillow, the U.S. housing deficit approaches 5 million homes, a figure that is rising as new construction fails to keep pace with population growth.
This is a pricing, political, and policy problem. More importantly, it’s a people problem.
People need stable, accessible housing that supports their health, education, and economic stability.
The question isn’t, “Do we have a problem?” The question is, “What can we do about it?” Here are three ways we can start building our way out.
Build Homes Like We Build Everything Else
Building a new home today has a striking resemblance to what it was like 60 years ago. A developer buys the land, flattens it, pours a foundation, and hires tradesmen and women to construct the building.
If a carpenter from the 1960s walked onto a construction site today, they would feel like little had changed. Meanwhile, the world outside the site couldn’t be more different.
Everything from the cars we drive to the supercomputers in our pockets has been radically transformed by technology and industrialized production.
To build more homes faster, we must leverage our manufacturing capabilities by applying industrial principles to housing, transitioning construction into controlled factory environments, and utilizing technologies such as modular, panelized, and 3D-printed construction.
Among many benefits, an industrial manufacturing approach to housing allows for simultaneous construction, eliminates weather-related delays, and reduces costs.
According to a McKinsey & Company study, industrialized production methods allow home builders to accelerate project timelines by up to 50% while reducing costs by up to 20%.
Affordable housing doesn’t need to be bespoke; it needs to be scalable. It’s time to build a predictable manufacturing engine for the homes we desperately need.
”We’ve got to get out of our own damn way.
Gavin NewsomThe Governor of California
Break the Regulatory Stranglehold
Our housing shortage isn’t just the product of outdated building processes. It’s also a victim of excessive regulation.
Currently, housing projects must navigate a complex process involving local zoning laws, permit applications, public hearings, and neighborhood reviews, which can significantly add to the time and costs associated with any new project.
To be sure, these rules and regulations were made with good intentions. They wanted to ensure safety, preserve the neighborhood’s character, promote environmental protection, and prevent reckless development.
However, these laws are stifling development when we can least afford it.
In June 2025, California rolled back the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to accelerate housing construction. The changes enable many new housing projects to bypass rigorous environmental review and avoid environmental-related lawsuits that deter new construction in California.
As California Governor Gavin Newsom said of the change, “We’ve got to get out of our own damn way.”
Other states, including Colorado, Florida, Maryland, and Texas, are enacting their own regulatory rollbacks.
We need more.
We need a nationwide effort to encourage state and local governments to streamline and standardize their regulations. This means modernizing zoning codes to allow for more diverse housing types beyond single-family homes, simplifying the approval process for projects that meet clear, consistent standards, and creating “fast-lanes” for affordable or innovative housing developments.
Simply put; to solve today’s housing challenges, we need to get out of our own way.
Redefine the American Dream for a New Era
For generations, the American Dream has been linked to homeownership. However, our collective focus on owning a single-family home as the only valid path to success has created an impossible bottleneck
Practically, this means we need to build support for high-quality, purpose-built rental communities that offer access to excellent schools, foster a sense of community, rely on professional management, and provide a pathway to housing stability.
A cultural shift is already underway.
For instance, nearly 75% of Gen Z view renting as a smarter option than buying. Meanwhile, the number of renter households earning $1 million or more tripled between 2019 and 2023.
Redefining the American Dream won’t make more housing appear. Still, it diversifies the available and desirable housing stock, allowing single-family homes, and other housing types to work together to solve the housing crisis.
Time to Get to Work
The U.S. housing crunch is a serious problem. It’s a crisis of our own making and only we have the power to solve it.
No single solution alone will close the housing gap. However, when we innovate our construction methods, reform outdated regulations, and adopt a broader, more inclusive definition of what constitutes a good home, we will make meaningful progress toward accessible, affordable housing for everyone.
We know the problem. We have solutions. It’s time to get to work.
This article was written by Richard Ross, CEO of Quinn Residences for Fast Company
