Will the Housing Shortage Clear Up in 2022?

• Author: Chris Remington
• Posted: 2024-08-30

The United States of America is not only dealing with a basic housing shortage but rather an unprecedented turn in the market that has seen the supply miss the demand by over three million individual homes. This is causing prices among available homes to be artificially raised, and by drastic amounts, while some experts claim that it's also contributed to over 100,000 more homeless people in the past year. What does America's government have as a plan to combat this housing shortage? That's just the problem; the government is talking about giving money to undocumented immigrants, and they're supporting multinational corporations buying up every single available home, but when it comes to a plan for housing for American citizens, they haven't spoken a single word about this. This leads many Americans to ask a question: Will things get better in 2022?

There are a lot of fair-minded people out there who are willing to give the Joe Biden administration the benefit of the doubt. Since he's only been in office less than a year, and since he inherited a global pandemic and an America in a state of civil unrest, many are willing to give him more time to have his government address housing issues. Others, however, realize that this may never happen and that there's never been a single word uttered by this administration in terms of solving the housing crisis for regular Americans.

Things are all over the board in many ways. Some areas are looking up, while others are looking bleak. Here are a few things you should know about the housing market in America for 2022.

Some States are Looking Forward

When it comes to the American housing market, it's not just one market. You're looking at a bunch of different micro markets that make up the macro in the aggregate. So, what you'll end up seeing is that some states are going to be very forward looking in how they attack this issue in 2022. States like Texas, Florida, the Dakotas, West Virginia, etc, are going to put a lot more money into building homes. What they get from the infrastructure bill recently passed does not have to go toward any predefined project. Instead, state governments have the freedom to allocate money.

Some of these states are going to put this money into affordable housing, and also into zoning a bunch of land and tying it into the municipal grid. So, if this happens in a state like West Virginia, for instance, then the residents of that state will have a much stronger housing market. Those in states that ignore the issue will be in a tougher situation, of course.

Very Little Infrastructure Spending on Public Housing

Speaking of what the federal government just passed on infrastructure, there's not a single penny anyone can identify that's actually going to the zoning, redistricting, or creation of any new municipal housing grids, any sort of communities, or even any affordable housing measures. Again, states can allocate money to do this, if they want to, but the fact that the federal government has spent over $10 trillion in the past two years, and not a single penny of that has been to help with America's housing crisis, really says all you need to know about how things will go in 2022.

However, this doesn't mean that states are going to ignore the issue individually. It does mean, unfortunately, that the federal government will in all likelihood continue to ignore the housing situation while making it easier for multinational corporations to buy them all up.

Corporations are the New People

Unfortunately for all Americans, the federal government has gone out of its way to make it easier for large corporations to buy residential housing. According to the available data, the investment firm BlackRock is purchasing about 39,000 homes every single month in the USA, and few if any of these homes are being put on the market. Just think about the implications of that for a second. An investment firm, worth billions of dollars and operating across the globe, is given the freedom to come into America and purchase up millions of homes, and then not sell them back to people. What are they holding onto the homes for? "Investment firm" means what it says. Government is making it easier for firms to buy homes, but not for people.

2022 is anyone's guess as to how the market will play out entirely. Some states will do better than others, just as some people will.