America’s housing affordability problem is often discussed through prices, interest rates, investors, or politics. Dr. Joseph Gyourko argues that the core issue is more direct: we are not building enough housing where people want to live.
In this episode of The Work Space Talk Show, Nathan Manuel talks with Dr. Joseph Gyourko, Martin Bucksbaum Professor of Real Estate, Finance and Business & Public Policy at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, about the history of housing affordability in the United States, the post-1970 shift in local zoning and supply restrictions, and the price-to-income ratio that explains why so many households feel squeezed.
They also discuss institutional single-family rentals, whether banning institutional buyers actually helps renters, why the commonly cited housing shortage number may be too low, what China’s overbuilt housing market reveals about supply-side policy, and why local zoning boards often represent existing neighbors more clearly than future residents.
For anyone working in real estate, construction, architecture, development, or public policy, this conversation connects housing economics to the systems that determine what actually gets built.
Learn more about Dr Gyourko: https://gyourko.github.io/
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