Housing affordability did not collapse because people suddenly got greedy.
It did not collapse because young people buy lattes.
It did not collapse because builders forgot how to build houses.
It collapsed because we stacked policy decisions on top of human incentives and then acted shocked by the outcome.
I sat down with Jasson Farrier , who spends his days buried in housing data across Ohio and the broader Midwest, to cut through the narratives and talk about what is actually happening. Not the vibes. Not the headlines. The mechanics.
Find Jasson Farrier at:
National housing insights: https://www.youtube.com/@housingnerd
Ohio housing insights: https://www.youtube.com/@ohiohousingnerd
Website: jassonfarrier.com
Email jassonfarrier@gmail.com
Prices Are High Because Nothing Moves
The core problem is not demand alone. It is paralysis.
Interest rates doubled after the pandemic. Home prices jumped roughly forty percent nationally since 2020. Those two facts together froze the market.
If you bought a home at two or three percent interest, moving now is financially irrational. Selling means trading a manageable payment for a much larger one, even if you downsize. That reality alone removed millions of starter homes from circulation.
When people do not move, price discovery stops. When price discovery stops, prices stay sticky even when demand cools. Ohio is the clearest example of this. While parts of Florida, Texas, and the Southwest are seeing real price declines due to heavy new construction, Ohio has almost none. Eighty two of eighty eight counties are still up year over year.
This is not a bubble waiting to pop. It is a market locked in amber.
Why Ohio Is Worse Than People Realize
People in Ohio see new construction and assume supply is coming. It is not.
Compared to the Sunbelt, Ohio’s building pipeline is thin to the point of irrelevance. Migration patterns matter. Builders follow people. Retirees and remote workers are not flocking to the Midwest. Developers know this. They are not going to sink capital into affordable housing where population growth is flat or negative.
Even when builders want to build smaller, cheaper homes, the math no longer works. Between land costs, permits, zoning restrictions, utility hookups, and financing, the only way to turn a profit is to build larger homes at higher price points. That is not ideology. That is arithmetic.
The result is predictable. We keep adding expensive homes while pretending to be confused about why affordability does not return.
The Investor Panic Is Mostly Misdirected
The internet wants a villain, so it chose BlackRock.
That story is convenient and mostly wrong.
Large institutional investors own a very small percentage of single family rentals. The real growth is in mid sized investors. Individuals or small LLCs who spent twenty years building portfolios and now own dozens or hundreds of properties.
Most rental homes are still owned by people with one to five units, many of them accidental landlords who never intended to become investors. They kept their homes because selling no longer makes sense.
This matters because stopping “corporations” will not fix the supply problem. The homes are not coming back onto the market unless the financial incentives change.
Boomers Are Not Hoarding Out of Malice
Yes, older generations own a disproportionate share of housing. That is what happens when you live longer and buy earlier.
The idea that they should sell out of moral obligation is fantasy politics. If you owned a paid off asset that provided security, you would not give it up either. Most are not sitting on luxury. Many are living on fixed incomes and are being crushed by rising property taxes.
The so called silver tsunami is not going to save anyone. Many of the homes that will eventually change hands are old, expensive to repair, or functionally obsolete. Some will be torn down. Others will sell at market rates, not fire sale prices.
Waiting for mass inheritance as a housing strategy is not serious policy.
Property Taxes Are the Quiet Killer
If there is one issue cutting across generations, it is property taxes.
Homeowners are being taxed on unrealized gains driven by market forces they did not create. A neighbor remodels. A developer builds nearby. Values jump on paper. Taxes rise in real dollars.
People who never improved their homes are paying more each year to stay in the same place. Retirees are being priced out of houses they already paid for.
This is not theoretical. In many Ohio counties, property taxes now exceed former mortgage payments. That is not funding community. That is destabilizing it.
Local governments insist this is democratic because levies are voted on. That ignores reality. High property taxes function as economic gatekeeping whether or not officials admit it. You cannot legally say “we do not want certain people here,” so you price them out instead.
Abolishing property taxes entirely creates other problems, especially for renters and housing prices. But pretending the current system is defensible is dishonest.
This Is a Policy Failure First
Markets respond to incentives. We rigged the incentives.
The Federal Reserve’s extended low rate policy encouraged overbuying. Post financial crisis policies invited institutional capital into housing at scale. Zoning laws froze density. Local politics blocked adaptive reuse. Then we acted surprised when supply could not respond.
Human behavior did the rest.
People chased bigger homes. Investors followed returns. Communities protected aesthetics over access. None of this is mysterious.
Housing is not broken. It is functioning exactly as designed.
Where This Leaves Us
Affordability is not coming back through patience alone. It will not be delivered by a crash. It will not arrive when the “right generation” dies off.
It will require deliberate choices about land use, taxation, financing, and what we consider acceptable housing. That means conflict. That means telling comfortable communities no. That means admitting that protecting property values and expanding access are often opposing goals.
If we are not willing to confront that, we should stop pretending this is an accident.
As always, I want to hear where you agree, where you disagree, and where I am missing something. The inbox is open.
Are you an ANGRY DEMOCRAT? If so, the please share with other Angry Dems.
Reference Show Notes
Market Snapshot: Where We Are Now
The national housing market remains elevated relative to pre-2020 levels, but price momentum has slowed. Median home prices vary depending on the data source. Redfin places the national median around $441,000, up roughly 1.4 percent year over year. Zillow, which uses a 35th to 65th percentile measure, reports prices closer to $362,000, up about 0.1 percent year over year.
Home prices are up approximately 40 percent since 2020, though the pace of appreciation has materially decelerated. Regional divergence remains strong. The Midwest and parts of the South are still comparatively affordable, while coastal metros remain structurally expensive.
The market is cooling through reduced transaction volume rather than falling prices. Inventory and new listings have declined again after roughly a year of growth, while buyer demand has not meaningfully returned.
Interest Rates and Affordability
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate is approximately 6.2 percent. Rates have more than doubled from their 2021 lows near 3 percent.
Affordability is now driven primarily by monthly payment size rather than headline home prices. A key question for discussion is whether lower rates would materially improve affordability or simply re-inflate home prices.
Supply, Demand, and the Housing Shortage
Active inventory is up roughly 12 percent year over year but remains below pre-COVID norms. Estimates of the national housing shortage range from approximately 3 to 5 million units.
New construction faces constraints from labor shortages, high financing costs, zoning restrictions, and permitting delays. Supply remains the core structural issue rather than demand, though the interaction between the two warrants deeper examination.
A common claim to explore is whether institutional and corporate buyers are significantly driving up prices in the affordable housing segment.
Home Size and Changing Preferences
The average U.S. home size in 2025 is approximately 1,800 square feet, compared to roughly 1,000 square feet in the 1950s.
Post-COVID trends show increased interest in smaller homes, townhomes, duplexes, and higher-density housing. Rising costs are pushing efficiency back into housing design and land use.
Zoning Laws and YIMBY vs. NIMBY
Large portions of U.S. cities remain zoned exclusively for single-family housing. NIMBY opposition continues to limit density and suppress new supply.
The YIMBY movement argues that zoning reform is essential to restoring affordability. The core tension is between local political control and market-driven housing creation.
Property Taxes and Ownership Costs
Home values have risen faster than incomes, leading to higher property tax assessments. Property taxes now represent a larger share of total housing costs than before COVID, even for homeowners with fixed-rate mortgages.
States such as Ohio are exploring caps on property tax increases tied to inflation. There are also renewed discussions around abolishing property taxes entirely, with clear tradeoffs worth examining.
Generational Divide in Housing
Millennials delayed homeownership by approximately five to seven years compared to prior generations, with the average first-time buyer now around age 40.
Gen Z is entering the market with higher student debt burdens and higher home prices. This has contributed to growth in co-buying arrangements, multigenerational households, and long-term renting.
A central question is whether homeownership is becoming structurally delayed rather than permanently denied.
Climate, Insurance, and Risk Pricing
Insurance premiums are rising sharply in flood-, fire-, and storm-prone regions. Climate risk is increasingly priced into home values and buyer decision-making.
Energy efficiency and resilience features are becoming meaningful selling points rather than optional upgrades. In some areas, insurance availability itself is emerging as a hidden constraint on housing markets.
The Big Framing Questions
Is the current housing crisis primarily a market failure or a policy failure?
What actually lowers prices over time: lower interest rates, increased supply, zoning reform, or a combination?
What does a realistic path to housing affordability look like over the next decade?
