US housing shortage statistics & facts

The US housing shortage in numbers

The United States does not have enough homes. Every major estimate agrees on that, even if they disagree on the size of the gap. Freddie Mac puts the shortage at 3.7 million units, the research group Up for Growth at 3.78 million, Zillow at 4.7 million and the Brookings Institution at 4.9 million. Older estimates by the National Association of Realtors went as high as 5.5 million. The differences come from different methods: some count missing households, others the number of vacant homes needed for a healthy market, and others compare construction with long-term trends. For the supply side, see our overview of residential construction in the United States.

The consequences are visible across the housing market. Home prices reached 4.7 times household income in 2025, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) at Harvard University, compared with an average of about 3.2 in the 1990s. A record 22.7 million renter households, almost half of all renters, spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing in 2024. First-time buyers made up only 21 percent of home purchases in the latest National Association of Realtors survey, the lowest share on record, and their median age rose to 40.

How big is the housing shortage?

The main estimates of the shortage, and how they are calculated, are summarized below. Freddie Mac estimates that the country was 3.7 million units short in the third quarter of 2024, combining about one million households that would exist if housing were as affordable as in 2000 and about 2.7 million vacant homes needed to reach a healthy vacancy rate. Up for Growth estimated a shortage of 3.78 million units in 2023, down slightly from 3.85 million in 2022, based on the number of homes needed to house all households, including those that cannot form today, with a normal vacancy rate.

Millions short: most current estimates put the US housing shortage between 3.7 and 4.9 million homes.

Zillow uses a different approach. It counts families that share a home with another family, often because they cannot afford one of their own, and subtracts the number of vacant homes for rent or sale. On this basis, the deficit was 4,743,274 homes in 2024, almost unchanged from 4.70 million in 2023, and the first year in a while that it did not grow. The Brookings Institution estimated a shortage of 4.9 million homes at the end of 2023, based on the stock needed to restore the affordability of 2006 with a 12 percent vacancy rate.

Some estimates are even larger. In its Economic Report of the President in April 2026, the White House Council of Economic Advisers argued that the shortfall of single-family homes alone could be 10 million or more, measured against the growth of the single-family stock before 2008. At the other end, the JCHS measures the shortage by how far vacancy rates are below their 1990s levels and estimates a gap of about 400,000 homes for sale and 200,000 rental units in early 2026, after new construction since 2022 closed about 900,000 units of the vacancy gap.

Is the shortage growing or shrinking?

By the Zillow measure, the shortage grew steadily for several years. The deficit rose from 3.79 million in 2019 to 4.28 million in 2021, 4.54 million in 2022 and 4.70 million in 2023, before levelling off at 4.74 million in 2024. Up for Growth found a small improvement, from 3.89 million in 2021 to 3.78 million in 2023. Freddie Mac revised its estimate down from 3.8 million at the end of 2020 to 3.7 million in 2024.

Levelling off: the Zillow housing deficit grew from 3.79 million in 2019 to 4.74 million in 2024, but barely changed in the last year.

The main reason for the recent stabilization is the surge in construction. Builders completed 1.63 million homes in 2024, the most since 2007, and 1.49 million in 2025, according to the Census Bureau. At the same time, household growth slowed. The JCHS estimates that the number of households grew by about 1.8 million in 2022, 1.6 million in 2023, 1.3 million in 2024 and 1.1 million in 2025, to 132.8 million. In both 2024 and 2025, completions exceeded household growth, allowing the shortage to shrink at the margin. Completions are covered in detail in our report on US housing starts and completions.

Supply catching up: completions of 1.63 million in 2024 and 1.49 million in 2025 exceeded household growth of 1.3 and 1.1 million.

This progress may not last. Completions are falling sharply in 2026, down 27.1 percent in August compared with a year earlier, as fewer apartment buildings are in the pipeline. And the slowdown in household growth partly reflects affordability itself: young adults who cannot afford to move out of the homes of their parents do not show up as new households.

Where the shortage is worst

The shortage is concentrated in large, expensive coastal metros. According to Zillow, the New York metro area had the largest housing deficit in 2024, at 405,956 homes, followed by Los Angeles with 344,533, Boston with 147,028, San Francisco with 132,116 and Washington DC with 130,424. Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Phoenix and Riverside complete the top ten.

New York and Los Angeles lead: the two largest metros together were short of about 750,000 homes in 2024.

These are also the metros where building is most restricted by zoning, land costs and lengthy approval processes. By contrast, Sun Belt metros such as Dallas, Houston and Phoenix approve far more homes each year. Up for Growth, which measures underproduction relative to the size of the housing stock, finds the highest shares in California metros such as Oxnard and Ventura, where the shortfall equals about 11 percent of the housing stock. Where new homes are being permitted is covered in our report on US building permits.

The shortage and affordability

The shortage shows up most clearly in prices. The median price of an existing home sold in the United States was 414,300 dollars in 2025, according to the National Association of Realtors, and 429,100 dollars in August 2026, 1.6 percent more than a year earlier. The JCHS estimates that the monthly payment on a median-priced home was about 3,120 dollars at the end of 2025, compared with about 1,700 dollars in early 2020, and that a household needed an income of more than 120,000 dollars to afford it.

Far above the 1990s: homes cost 4.7 times household income in 2025, compared with about 3.2 times in the 1990s.

Renters are under even greater pressure. In 2024, a record 22.7 million renter households, 49 percent of the total, were cost-burdened, spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities, and 12.1 million spent more than half. The number of cost-burdened renters has risen by 2.3 million since 2019. The supply of cheap rentals has shrunk: the JCHS estimates that the number of homes renting for less than 1,000 dollars a month fell by about 7 million between 2014 and 2024. Among homeowners, 20.7 million households were cost-burdened. The rising cost of living is covered in our data on the US cost of living.

Homeownership and vacancy

The latest Housing Vacancy Survey from the Census Bureau shows a tight market for owners and a slightly looser one for renters. In the second quarter of 2026, the homeownership rate was 65.0 percent, unchanged from a year earlier, and the homeowner vacancy rate 1.2 percent, close to historic lows. The rental vacancy rate rose to 7.3 percent from 7.0 percent, reflecting the wave of new apartment completions. There were 133.8 million occupied housing units, including 87.0 million owner-occupied and 46.8 million rented, out of a total of 149.5 million housing units.

The annual homeownership rate fell to 65.2 percent in 2025, from 65.6 percent in 2024 and 65.9 percent in 2023, according to the JCHS. Young adults are most affected: first-time buyers are older than ever, with a median age of 40, and sellers stay in their homes longer, a median of 11 years, which reduces the number of homes coming onto the market. Many owners with low mortgage rates are choosing to improve their homes rather than move, as covered in our report on home remodeling spending.

Why the US is short of homes

The shortage has several roots. The most important is the long period of underbuilding after the 2008 financial crisis: housing starts fell from 2.07 million in 2005 to 554,000 in 2009 and stayed below one million a year until 2014. Many small builders went out of business, and the construction workforce shrank. Local zoning rules that allow only detached single-family homes on large lots make it hard to build more homes in places where demand is highest. Rising costs for land, materials and labor, covered in our report on the cost to build a house, make many projects unprofitable, especially at the lower end of the market.

Outlook for the housing shortage

The shortage is likely to narrow only slowly. Construction is slowing in 2026, builders face high interest rates and rising costs, and the pipeline of new apartments is shrinking. On the demand side, slower population growth and lower immigration could reduce the need for new homes, while pent-up demand from young adults living with their parents could increase it. Policy changes, such as easing zoning rules and speeding up approvals, are widely seen as the most effective way to increase supply over the long term. The challenges facing builders are covered in our report on home builder challenges, and the companies building most new homes in our report on US homebuilders.

The housing shortage in numbers

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