Housing starts reach normal levels by 2022 according to experts

According to a survey rendered by Zillow of housing experts, the general consensus is that the home building shortage will last until 2022 or later. The survey which is called the Q3 2019 Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey asked more than 100 economists, investment strategists and housing experts for their opinions on when annualized housing starts will next reach one million.  Only 1 in 5 panelists with an opinion about this matter (20%) said they expect single-family starts to reach that mark before the end of 2020. The majority believe that it will be in 2022 or later before housing construction of homes hits 1 million.

Courtesy of Zillow

The million dollar statistical figure is considered the average rate as new single family home construction starts averaged 1 million every year since 1959. Since 2007, housing starts have failed to reach the figure. The graph above shows when the experts believe we will hit the average levels again. Besides 20% of experts believing that we will hit the level by 2020, twenty six percent of the participants (26%) believed it will happen by 2021, however the majority (54%) said the 1 million mark was most likely to be exceeded in 2022 or later.

“The panelists were thereafter queried in selecting three possible solutions that might make building easier, and to rank their selections in order of their expected effectiveness in goosing home building activity. The three most commonly chosen and highest-ranked actions chosen were:

  • Relaxing local review regulations for projects of a certain size (chosen by 56% of panelists
  • Reducing mandatory minimum lot sizes (38% of panelists)
  • Easing the land subdivision process for landowners (38%)”

The panelists were also asked to project growth for this year and beyond. Overall they expect annual home growth to slow to 3.6% at the end of the year. Presently annual home growth is increasing by 5.2%. Growth will slow even further to 2.5% in 2020 and 2.2% in 2021.

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