The migrant and housing crises are colliding with predictable results
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Our country is facing a housing shortage. The cost of renting or purchasing a home is taxing the budgets of middle-class Americans in ways not seen in decades. Press reports point to high mortgage interest rates, supply bottlenecks, labor and materials price inflation and zoning restrictions as proximate causes.
But the housing supply is only half the story. Largely missing from the affordability discussion is the impact of immigration policies on housing demand.
Many recent stories highlight the affordability crisis facing renters and prospective home buyers. The short-lived dip in national home prices has ended and home prices are once again increasing. Homeownership has rarely been so expensive. The National Association of Realtors home affordability index is at lows last recorded in the late 1980s. Rent inflation was a major contributor to 2022 consumer price index (CPI) inflation, a trend that continues in 2023. The August 12-month increase in the shelter component of the CPI, 7.3 percent, is still stoking inflation.
House price and rent affordability indexes compiled by the Federal Department and Housing and Urban Development show that household incomes have not kept pace with the rising cost of homeownership and rents.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/the-migrant-and-housing-crises-are-colliding-with-predictable-results/ar-AA1hMwFp?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=9c6f9728c9a8477bb036f624218ffacb&ei=49
