The high cost of housing has emerged as one of the hottest political/economic issues.
Why are costs so stubbornly high?
This chart from the folks at the Rational Optimist provides some instructive insights. It’s self-evident that cities with rising inflows of people have higher price increases. There’s no housing affordability issue in Peoria.
Meanwhile, Phoenix and Tampa have seen a 65% rise in rents over the past decade.
What we found interesting in this chart is the outliers. Chicago, San Diego and Los Angeles have seen population losses over the past decade but steady increases in rents. These are highly restrictive land-use cities – some of which have rent and zoning restrictions.
On the other side of the spectrum are the fast-growing Texas cities – including Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. Houston is famous for almost no zoning restrictions and the others have minimal zoning and minimal government price controls.