Analyzing newly released data from the American Community Survey, Jed Kolko finds reason to believe that construction of singly-family housing is outpacing demand.
"Newly released data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) show that the vacancy rate for single-family homes actually ticked up a bit in 2013," reports Jed Kolko. "That’s a big surprise. It suggests even today’s low level of single-family construction might still be too much, too soon."
To make that argument, Kolko breaks down the data on changes in households and housing between 2012 and 2013, finding low rates of household formation, and "[low] household formation means less demand for new construction," writes Kolko.
Kolko then goes on to break down the vacancy data, finding that multi-family vacancies are down while single-family vacancies are up—leading Kolko to conclude that the building industry is focused on the wrong housing type.
Read the full story: Are We Building Too Many Single-Family Homes?
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