Let’s start with the obvious: the US has a housing shortage.
The root cause is simple enough: we have a supply-and-demand problem. There is an insufficient supply relative to historically high demand.
While the estimates vary, there is unanimous agreement that the US is short millions of housing units, missing more homes today than the total number of homes in New York City!
Imagine if every single apartment, brownstone, condo, and house in the five boroughs simply didn’t exist. That is the scale of the gap between the number of families who need homes and the number of homes available.
It’s a real crisis affecting people’s everyday lives, and it didn’t happen overnight.
How We Got Here
The current shortage is a supply-and-demand imbalance that has been building for over a decade.
Demand has steadily (and sometimes suddenly) increased as millennials reached home-buying age, the overall population grew, and remote work shifted where and how people want to live.
Here are the primary forces driving our current housing deficit.
A Decade of Underbuilding
In the early 2000s, the housing sector was booming. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York describes this period as a time of rapid housing construction and soaring demand.
Supply and demand were in sync. Then the housing bubble burst.
After the 2008 housing crash, the construction industry retreated as consumer demand plummeted and a housing surplus made new construction less profitable.
For nearly ten years, we simply stopped building enough homes to keep up with population growth. Now we’re playing catch-up, but it takes time to erase a decade-long deficit.
Zoning and Regulatory Red Tape
Even when builders are ready to construct new neighborhoods, outdated regulations often stand in the way.
For instance, in Atlanta, outdated zoning laws still prohibit most multifamily development. Collectively, more than 60% of Atlanta is zoned exclusively for single-family housing.
Even when zoning laws don’t prevent new construction, the process is tedious. Developers encounter a tangle of complex permit requirements, changing building codes, and exhaustive public hearings, all while incurring legal fees long before a single shovel hits the ground.
The Lock-In Effect
Millions of existing homes that should be hitting the market are occupied by owners who won’t move. They don’t want to forfeit their low mortgage rates, can’t afford higher home prices, or simply aren’t enthusiastic about current offerings.
The result is diminished supply, suppressed listings, and a frozen housing market that won’t thaw until new supply reaches a critical mass.
Existing Homes Don’t Match Modern Needs
Even when homes do hit the market, they often don’t match what modern renters or buyers want.
For instance, the housing market has an abundance of large, older estates that are expensive to maintain, but we lack an adequate supply of efficient, manageable homes for modern professionals and smaller households.
This leaves many would-be buyers or renters wondering why they should pay premium prices for outdated floor plans and maintenance nightmares that don’t align with their lifestyles.
When your only options are taking on a massive mortgage for an aging house or renting a cramped apartment in a massive complex, you feel trapped.
People want flexibility and space, but the current market rarely offers both. Faced with bad options, many would-be movers simply opt out, choosing to stay put and wait for a market that actually meets their needs.
”We’re playing catch-up, but it takes time to erase a decade-long deficit.
James HowleyChief Investment Officer
What the Housing Shortage Means for Real People
The US housing shortage has real-world, personal implications. For many people, it reshapes how they live, when they start families, and how they build their personal and professional futures.
For example, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center analysis, nearly one in five adults ages 25–34 still live with their parents, a historically high rate even after the pandemic peak.
Additionally, when housing is scarce, people cannot move for better jobs or make lifestyle changes for themselves or their families.
A teacher might turn down a position in a great district because they can’t find a place to live nearby, a nurse might bypass a high-need hospital because the local rent would swallow half their paycheck, or a rising entrepreneur might stay in a stagnant city simply because they can’t afford the rent in a more dynamic tech hub.
In the end, scarcity increases housing prices for everyone, a problem that will persist as long as too many people chase too few homes.
You Don’t Have to Put Your Life on Hold
The housing crisis is a complex structural issue that will take years to fully resolve. But your life doesn’t happen on an economist’s timeline.
That’s why Quinn Residences is actively adding supply where it’s needed most, building brand-new, purpose-built communities in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Our communities offer the lifestyle of a single-family home without the high mortgage costs of ownership.
Don’t put your life on hold waiting for the housing market to change. Discover a community where you can put down roots today.
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Homes with Life in Mind.
