Unleashing Manufactured Housing

Nearly every US politician is talking about improving housing affordability, and most of them are looking intently for villains to blame for today's high home prices. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the price escalations in recent years have not been driven primarily by "speculators" or short- term rentals, and there does not appear to be a bubble. Rather, there is a fundamental imbalance between housing supply and market demand, especially in the for- sale market. The United States presently has an estimated shortage of 3-5 million housing units. That shortage is most acute in the market for entry- level homes, typically defined as those that are 1,400 square feet or smaller. Since the late 1970s, builders have produced roughly the same number of these homes on an annual basis, even as the US population has increased by over 50 percent.