Facts that contradict the standard housing bubble story

Here I am doing a mix of quoting and paraphrasing the excellent Kevin Erdmann:

1. “Housing construction has been constricted in our most prosperous cities.”

2. “Home prices in many developed countries rose at least as sharply as inthe US.”

3. “…rent inflation has been persistently high for 20 years.”

4. “Growth in real rent expenditures generally had been declining throughout the supposed boom period.”

5. “During the boom, the relative income of the typical homebuyer did not decline.”

6. During the boom, homeowners were not “buying up.”

7. Homeownership rates, even at their peak levels in 2004, among age groups under 65 years old, were no higher than homeownership rates had been in the late 1970s and early 1980s.”

8. “…when taking into account all types of housing, the number of new housing units never even rose very far above the long-term average.”

Those are all from Kevin’s new and very important book Shut Out: How a Housing Shortage Caused the Great Recession and Crippled Our Economy.  The simple “housing bubble” story is not in fact as true as it might seem, as Kevin shows, and furthermore just look at how many parts of America now have home prices at or above their “bubbly peaks.”  I hope this work gets the attention it deserves.