I mentioned the “housing crisis” to a friend a couple months ago, and he looked at me with slight confusion: “Which one?” I can forgive this r

The Starter House Is Nearly Extinct

submited by

Style Pass

2023-01-26 07:00:04

I mentioned the “housing crisis” to a friend a couple months ago, and he looked at me with slight confusion: “Which one?”

I can forgive this reaction easily, and in fact it was a helpful reminder. Most people are experiencing a squeeze from record-high housing costs in the past few years. Headlines certainly reflect this as one of the major economic “stories” of the moment. But not everyone is experiencing remotely the same thing. A graph shared on Twitter by economist Adam Tooze makes that clear.

The graph shows price bands representing new homes sold in the United States since 2002. Over that time period, the share of new homes priced at under $300,000 has dramatically fallen to fewer than 10%. As recently as 2015, half of new homes were in this category.

This is one clue to the very different housing crises being experienced by Americans in different socioeconomic strata. On the one hand, you’re a home seeker whose price point is higher, you’re experiencing the squeeze in some ways: the rising cost of rent or a mortgage, fewer good deals to be had, tough competition for available homes, and the need to compromise on desired features or location.