HOW CAN WE SOLVE THE PROBLEM: If Americans can't agree on why housing is so unaffordable Americans may not agree on much these days, but nearly everyone agrees on this: housing is too expensive. A new survey finds 93% of Americans think housing costs are unreasonable — and this is a very rare bipartisan consensus in an otherwise divided country. And they’re right. The median-priced home in the U.S. now sits at $403,000, and despite dropping this year, a roughly 6% mortgage rate will still put buyers with good credit at around $2,300 per month. That’s 33% of the median household income in the U.S., or roughly 48% after taxes — and this doesn’t even account for single individuals' average income. Just six years ago, that same home would’ve cost around $1,500 per month, or 53% less. But when asked why housing is so unaffordable, that unity collapses again. Roughly half of respondents blame investors for driving up prices by snapping up homes, while others point to rising construction costs, greedy landlords, or politicians failing to act. Just 17% say immigration is to blame, and fewer than one in ten think the main issue is red tape slowing new construction. In other words, everyone agrees there’s a problem—but no one agrees on who’s holding the hammer. Economists, meanwhile, are mostly aligned: it’s the shortage. The U.S. is short nearly 4 million homes according to government and real estate industry analysis, and that supply crunch explains most of the price pressure. Only about 13% of homes sold last year went to investors—most of them small landlords, not faceless hedge funds—so while Wall Street’s presence makes for an easy villain, it’s not the primary driver. It’s been popular to blame investors, but the economics of that don’t make a lot of sense. If there’s a bright spot, it’s that attitudes toward new housing seem to be shifting. A majority of Americans — 54%, including more than half of homeowners—say they’d welcome more building in their communities. That’s a sign that the NIMBY tide might be turning, even slightly. The hard truth is that no single scapegoat can fix a decades-long shortage. But public frustration could be the political pressure needed to get more homes built. #HousingCrisis, #AffordableHousing, #HousingShortage, #HomePrices, #SupplyCrunch, #BuildMoreHomes, #NIMBY, #YIMBY, #HousingAffordability, #RealEstateCrisis, #MortgageRates, #MedianHomePrice, #HousingSupply, #EndTheShortage, #BipartisanIssue, #HousingConsensus, #ConstructionCosts, #RedTapeReform, #ZoningReform, #MoreHousing, #Homeownership, #RentTooHigh, #InvestorBlame, #SupplySideSolution, #HousingPolicy, #AmericanDream, #FixHousing, #BuildBabyBuild, #4MillionHomes, #HousingEconomics, #LandUseReform, #PermitReform, #NotInMyBackyard, #YesInMyBackyard, #HousingShortfall, #Homebuyers, #FirstTimeHomebuyer, #RentalCrisis, #RealEstate, #EconomicIssue, #HousingPoll, #PublicFrustration, #PoliticalPressure, #DecadesLongProblem, #ShortageFix, #HomeBuilding, #AffordabilityGap, #MortgageBurden, #HousingReform, #SolveHousing

And still there is nothing on the west side, where you could have a bar or patio area along the water in some shade. And they continue to make poor plans #decadeslongproblem