Credit Where Credit Is Due: Nashville & Charlotte!

I saw this interesting interview of Charlie Gardner, by Nolan Gray about a quirk in Nashville housing regulations that has made it easier to build infill starter homes.

It occurred to me that I don’t look at Nashville enough because it is just outside the range of metropolitan areas that I have traditionally looked at with the tracker. So, I gave it a new look.

Usually Austin is my superstar. I realized that I haven’t given Nashville enough credit for doing better than average on keeping housing costs reasonable. And, even though it is in the tracker, I also haven’t given Charlotte enough credit.

Figure 1 shows the price/income ratio for houses across those three metro areas in 1999 and in 2021, arranged by ZIP code average income reported to the IRS.

Figure 1

The basic framework I use in the tracker is that supply constraints cause housing costs to rise regressively. Housing booms are associated with rising home prices across the whole metro area. Housing obstruction causes rents and prices to rise the most in the poorest neighborhoods.

You can see that conditions have gotten quite a bit worse in all three cities since 1999, but these are the best of the bunch, folks.

Figure 2 shows the percentage change in valuations for the average ZIP code in each metro area that the tracker attributes to cyclical changes versus supply obstructions.