Market Condition:
Declining Adequate Housing Supply
Effect on Residents:
Fewer adequate housing options for first-time and repeat homebuyers. Rising rent costs for suitable housing as available options for renting dwindle.
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Market Condition:
Rising Interest Rates
Effect on Residents:
Rising interest rates can create financial barriers of entry for first-time homebuyers in the form of more expensive mortgage options. Existing homeowners are priced out of upgrading or moving due to the cost of a new mortgage. Additionally, financing for larger construction projects becomes more costly as starting capital is more expensive to borrow with higher interest rates.
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Market Condition:
Neighborhood Composition and Zoning Controls
Effect on Residents:
A higher predominance of single-family housing (SFH) and exclusionary zoning in a regional market can reduce first-time homebuyers’ ability to find suitable, adequate housing while inflating monthly rent costs for renters. Adding multi-family housing options to a local market can increase housing supply, create more opportunities for first-time homebuyers with lower incomes, and bring economies of scale to lower rents for all income levels.
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Market Condition:
Housing Voucher Discrimination
Effect on Residents:
Landlords that do not accept housing voucher applicants reduces the number of affordable housing options for low-moderate-income residents who cannot afford quality housing without support.
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Market Condition:
Regional Industry Diversification
Effect on Residents:
Boom and bust cycles for non-diversified regional economies can strain housing supply, causing developers to overshoot housing supply estimates in boom years and extensive housing vacancy rates that can cause housing to fall into disrepair and substandard condition in bust years.
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Market Condition:
Racial Housing Discrimination
Effect on Residents:
Housing discrimination based on race is still a prevalent issue for many Black and Latino prospective homebuyers. Mortgage companies, banks, and other lending institutions have discriminated against borrowers based on race and reduced housing opportunities. Minority home sellers have also reported instances of discrimination in appraisals. This lowers home valuations and equity for individuals looking to sell their homes and drives down property values in minority-majority neighborhoods.
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Market Condition:
Transportation Deficiencies
Effect on Residents:
Commute patterns and existing transportation system networks that are built to suit automobile travel can lead to more urban sprawl and a higher predominance of single-family homes in planned suburban communities away from regional job clusters. These housing and commute patterns can lead to reductions in farmland supply on peripheries of urban areas, induce harmful societal effects of overuse and predominance of single-occupancy vehicle travel, and make new housing (and the infrastructure to support it) more expensive to build.
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Market Condition:
Stunted Regional Wage Growth/Price Inflation
Effect on Residents:
The failure of average wages to keep up with growing price inflation for everyday goods reduces first-time homebuyer’s ability to save for down payments, constricts a renter’s budget for housing costs, and can lead to higher levels of evictions and homelessness in a region.
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Market Condition:
Skyrocketing Material Costs
Effect on Residents:
Increases in raw material costs can cause new housing growth cost to skyrocket based on local, regional, and international markets for construction materials like steel, aluminum, electrical components, plumbing pipes, wood, and other materials used in housing construction.
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Market Condition:
Supply Chain and Logistics Delays
Effect on Residents:
Extensive supply chain and logistic delays can induce higher project costs, artificially pricing some housing developers out of the market.
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