Odd Lots

The Housing Market Has a Bottleneck That’s Even Bigger Than Lumber

There Is A Massive Tug-of-War in U.S. Housing: Ali Wolf
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We know that demand for housing is red hot, and yet yesterday’s housing starts number came in surprisingly weak. For the month of April we saw a decline of 9.5% from the previous month versus expectations of just a 2% decline.

Of course there are lots of bottlenecks and other supply-side factors that everybody knows about. The lumber shortage is a big one. Lack of labor is another. But the sheer lack of land is an important and overlooked issue.