The chief national portal used by real estate agents to list existing-homes for sale is mounting a campaign to boost the new home market. The idea is that more housing will relieve pressure on prices, making it easier for more buyers to qualify for homes in both sectors.
The initiative is meant to correct an estimated shortage of nearly four million houses, a supply gap that has stretched home buyer budgets and is pushing ownership out of reach of more and more people. The gap is the third largest spread since 2012.
At the current pace of new house construction, according to Realtor.com, the official listing site of the National Association of Realtors, it will take 7.5 years to close that gap. It won’t take as long in the South, just three years. But in the Midwest, the shortfall will take 41 years to correct.
To correct the imbalance, the site is launching “Let America Build,” a national campaign advocating for solutions to expand housing supply. The project was announced early this week at SXSW conference in Austin, Tex.
“Building new homes is a win for the housing market and especially essential for young households that have struggled to form in an era of high housing costs. More home supply means lower prices, which can bring higher home sales,” the site maintains.
Specifically, Realtor.com is advocating for ideas to cut through red tape, restrictive zoning, and outdated regulations that most housing professionals believe are constricting the ability to build the homes America needs. The initiative calls on lawmakers at every level to make bold, pro-building choices.
The site, which is operated by Move Inc., a division of the Murdock family-owned News Corp., aims to join forces with some of the biggest industry leaders, including builders, policymakers and housing advocates to push for actionable change that will help create more homes faster.
“America's housing shortage is holding back economic growth, driving up costs and making it harder for millions of families to find a home,” said Damian Eales, Realtor.com’s CEO. “We're rallying the right voices to push for real solutions that will unlock supply and make homeownership more attainable.”
At SXSW, the popular music festival and conference known for fostering innovative ideas across technology, policy and culture, the listing site hosted three different panel discussions. On one, Chief Economist Danielle Hale outlined the nature of the housing shortage.
For the first time since 2016, she reported, new home construction outpaced household formations last year. But that’s because fewer than one million new households were formed in 2024, the lowest rate since 2016.
The gap would have widened, not closed, if many young people hadn’t chosen to remain at home or live with others, leaving an estimated 1.63 million "pent-up" households that were never formed.
Some 1.36 million homes were started, exceeding household formations by nearly 400,000. But still, total housing starts were at their lowest level since 2020.
The decline was largely the result of a slowdown in multi-family construction. Single-family starts, on the other hand, surged to their second-highest level since 2007, as builders ramped up production to address the shortage of existing homes on the market.
“While builders made strides last year, the scale of the historic housing shortage, paired with strong pent-up demand, meant that new supply couldn't fully close the nearly 4 million-home gap,” Hale said.”Young households are particularly feeling the strain, as buying a home on an early-to mid-career salary is increasingly out of reach for many.”
Another noticeable impact of the supply gap is lower homeowner vacancies, which were at an historic low of 0.7% in the second quarter of 2023. Though the rate has recovered somewhat, reaching 1.1% in the fourth quarter of 2024, it is still well below the historic norm, the site reported.
