I came across some important research from Realtor.com that really puts into perspective just how uneven the housing crisis is across America. The basic problem is clear: we're short around four million homes nationwide because we've underbuilt for decades. This shortage drives up prices and keeps people from buying homes, which means they're stuck renting or living with family longer. The good news is that Congress has started to pay attention with the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which ties federal block grant money to how well cities and regions are actually building new homes.
What Realtor.com did here was grade the hundred largest metro areas across the country on two main things: how much homebuilding is happening relative to population size, and whether homes are actually affordable. They weighted both equally and looked at whether new construction is competitively priced and what percentage of median income gets eaten up by mortgage payments. The results show a pretty stark regional divide, with places in the South and Midwest performing much better than the West and Northeast. That makes sense because land is cheaper in those regions, zoning rules are friendlier to new development, and home prices haven't gotten as out of hand.
Des Moines came out on top in their rankings, which tells you something about the Midwest right now. They're permitting way more homes than the national average relative to their population, and a typical earner there only needs to spend about twenty-seven and a half percent of their income on a mortgage payment for a median-priced home. That's actually reasonable. Of the top performers, five of them were in states that got A grades overall, but Raleigh, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, Palm Bay, and Columbus all punched above their state's weight, which is impressive.
On the flip side, thirteen metros got F grades, which means there's serious trouble. Los Angeles hit bottom in their rankings, and it's brutal: the median earner has to spend eighty-four percent of their income just to afford a mortgage on the median-priced home there. They're also building way less than the national average per person. California metros like Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, and Stockton all got F grades, though Riverside actually showed better homebuilding numbers, which could help affordability down the road if they keep it up. Miami is the one failing metro in a state that got a B grade overall, but it's boxed in geographically by the Everglades and the ocean, so expansion is nearly impossible.
What I'm seeing locally here in the Bay Area matches what these numbers are telling us. We've got some of the same constraints as Los Angeles: expensive land, restrictive zoning, and we're not building nearly enough to keep up with demand. Places like San Jose and the broader Bay Area are clearly struggling on this scorecard, and it's no wonder when you look at what's happening with home prices versus what people actually earn. This research underscores that the only real solution is more building, and until local governments make it easier and faster to permit new construction, we're going to keep seeing affordability get worse instead of better.
