Deep Dive: Understanding The Housing Crisis

Our Teams "Insights" channel chimes often with recommendations from our colleagues. Getting in-depth into issues affecting the building materials industry is kind of our thing.

In our newest blog series, we're sharing some of our top recommendations for reading, listening and viewing on any given subject. Our hope is that this list can be a useful reference for our audience to explore industry news and ideas in an in-depth way. Our first column is kicking off with recs related to the housing crisis: why it's here, how it started and what it might take to solve it.

The old adage is that luck is opportunity and preparation meeting at the right time. And one way to prep is to be armed with a thorough understanding of the economic and social issues that are inextricably tied to the work of our industry.

Welcome to #DeepDive.

podcast

99% Invisible

Not Built For This 2: The Ripple Effect
“This specific episode explores the ripple effect caused when a major California wildfire destroyed a large percentage of affordable housing in a region already tightly constrained by limited supply and high prices. The whole six-part miniseries is an important listen as it explores the human impact when climate change collides with the housing crisis.” — Jen M., Director of Brand Content

podcast

Today, Explained

Buy a house? In this economy?
"This one is from spring 2024 but no less relevant. In 26 minutes, it breaks down the economic forces shaping the housing affordability crisis and dives in to supply and demand issues with the market now. Being in the market for a home myself, I can definitely attest to just how challenging it is to find the right home that meets your needs." — Chris G., Associate Creative Director

article

New York Times

What Kalamazoo, (Yes, Kalamazoo), Reveals About the Nation’s Housing Crisis
“The article puts it well: ‘The surplus-to-shortage whipsaw [in Michigan] is a mitten-shaped miniature of what the entire country has gone through.’ I found this in-depth article from the New York Times successfully helps us understand the full picture by using this Michigan city as a case study. And it really brings home how rapidly this slowly developing problem has come to a boil for families who, just five years ago, could afford a home without such intense pressure and competition.” —Alia O., Copywriter

podcast

Odd Lots

A Guggenheim Executive's Radical Plan to Build Millions of New Homes
“The U.S. is suffering from a housing shortage—something between 3 to 5 million homes short of demand, according to various estimates. This podcast features former Treasury Department official and co-chair of Guggenheim Securities Jim Millstein. He discusses a plan proposal to increase financing for the construction sector that might kick into gear new home starts. The episode is interesting, but also a good study in how far we are from solving this problem.” —Sandy Embrescia-Hridel, Director of Strategic Insights

article

New York Times

How an American Dream of Housing Became a Reality in Sweden
“Moving more of the home building process from the job site to the factory is the success story of this Swedish project, and one of the inspirations for the movement actually came from the U.S.: Operation Breakthrough, a project that built nearly 3,000 units between 1971 and 1973. I found it to be an important analysis of why the home building industry has actually become less productive than other industries and how changing our approach could unlock a lot of opportunity for builders and for American home buyers and renters. For years, the US has talked about offsite or modular construction growing exponentially, but we’ve remained stalled at only 4% of the market. And, if you add deportation to our labor pool issues (statistics say up to a quarter of construction workers lack permanent legal status) we will have an even greater issue building job site homes.” —Bill Rossiter, Interrupt CEO

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