Confronting the housing supply shortage: policy options

The US is facing an acute housing supply shortage; the result of years of underconstruction. We argue that there are four major reasons for this: restrictive zoning, high regulatory costs, high building costs, including labor and materials, and financing constraints. We then focus on four specific single family products that could benefit from removing some of these barriers: manufactured housing, modular/panelized/pre-cut housing, accessory dwelling units and housing preservation. We estimate how many units each could add. © 2023, National Association for Business Economics.