Previously, I have estimated the deviation in the trend of adults per home, trends in homeownership, and trends in the types of homes being constructed. This post is just another stab at that with some slightly different visuals.
My gut reaction is to agree that the "sadistic electorate" will react negatively to more housing construction, but as usual I think this will continue to be a regionally specific phenomenon. As Nolan Grey puts it: "Red states build, blue states don't" and I think this trend will persist even if deportations mess up labor markets in Southern boom cities.
Although not the major focus of your post, I appreciated your paragraph debunking the "density is too expensive" argument that crops up in NIMBY camps. While it's true that life/safety building codes and construction physics make large buildings marginally more costly to construct, the major impediment is local regulations that drive up planning time and soft costs. Multi-unit builders could make money anywhere if they were given the opportunity to build at scale in response to market demand.
Are you saying that smart developers with a long term focus should find a way to construct multi-family or single family over build-to-rent, since build-to-rent only has adequate demand currently due to regulation and lack of mortgage access restricting multi and single family building?
In other words, when demand dynamics return to "normal", will build-to-rent still make sense to develop?
Well, there's a macro- vs. micro- issue there. For any given builder in any given location, build-to-rent may not be appropriate. But, at the macro level, it is where the marginal growth will come from.
It's sort of like predicting that the AI revolution will lead to a boom in data center production. The question of whether it will happen or not and the question of whether those will end up being good investments are two different questions. The first can be certain while the second is not.
I do think it bodes well for the tract home builders because they can build the neighborhoods and sell them to the institutional buyers without having much exposure to future rent trends, etc. So I think they are the clear winners in terms of seeing this trend before the market prices it in.
But, I think the buyers also have a decent set of scenarios, because the only way that demand comes back is by loosening mortgage standards. That would lower rents in the long-run, but there would be an outlet for the investors to sell the homes to owner-occupiers.
My gut reaction is to agree that the "sadistic electorate" will react negatively to more housing construction, but as usual I think this will continue to be a regionally specific phenomenon. As Nolan Grey puts it: "Red states build, blue states don't" and I think this trend will persist even if deportations mess up labor markets in Southern boom cities.
Although not the major focus of your post, I appreciated your paragraph debunking the "density is too expensive" argument that crops up in NIMBY camps. While it's true that life/safety building codes and construction physics make large buildings marginally more costly to construct, the major impediment is local regulations that drive up planning time and soft costs. Multi-unit builders could make money anywhere if they were given the opportunity to build at scale in response to market demand.
I'm specifically worried about the "get Wall Street out of housing" bills, some of which are federal.
Are you saying that smart developers with a long term focus should find a way to construct multi-family or single family over build-to-rent, since build-to-rent only has adequate demand currently due to regulation and lack of mortgage access restricting multi and single family building?
In other words, when demand dynamics return to "normal", will build-to-rent still make sense to develop?
Well, there's a macro- vs. micro- issue there. For any given builder in any given location, build-to-rent may not be appropriate. But, at the macro level, it is where the marginal growth will come from.
It's sort of like predicting that the AI revolution will lead to a boom in data center production. The question of whether it will happen or not and the question of whether those will end up being good investments are two different questions. The first can be certain while the second is not.
I do think it bodes well for the tract home builders because they can build the neighborhoods and sell them to the institutional buyers without having much exposure to future rent trends, etc. So I think they are the clear winners in terms of seeing this trend before the market prices it in.
But, I think the buyers also have a decent set of scenarios, because the only way that demand comes back is by loosening mortgage standards. That would lower rents in the long-run, but there would be an outlet for the investors to sell the homes to owner-occupiers.