U.S. housing shortage is worst on the West Coast, new study finds

Increasingly across the U.S., there just aren’t enough homes being listed to meet demand. First-time buyers are especially hard hit as housing shortages drive up prices— sorry aspiring millennials homeowners.

But not all areas are equally wanting. Realtor.com recently took a look at the 150 largest housing markets in the U.S., studying the proportion of homes available for sale in each city. These numbers were then compared to 2015-2016 percentages. Half of the top 10 worst markets are concentrated on the West Coast, with the other half composed mostly of mid-sized midwestern cities.

“More than two-thirds of the markets are seeing less inventory now compared to a year ago,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Realtor.com. “Tight credit and limited new construction are clearly at play.”

Seattle took the cake with just 0.4 percent of the city’s homes up for sale, a decrease of 13.4 percent from 2016. One reason for the shortage may be zoning—roughly 65 percent of Seattle land is zoned for single-family homes, preventing the development of more high-density apartment buildings.

Eugene, Oregon is next on the list with just 0.6 percent of homes on the market at an inventory decrease of 27.3 percent from last year. Sacramento, California; Portland, Oregon; and Santa Rosa, California also broke the top 10. Check out the full report here.

Via: Realtor.com, Construction Dive