Nobody Really Knows the Scale of the U.S. Housing Crisis
Date postedFebruary 4, 2026
News,
The United States faces a serious housing shortage, one that Moody’s estimates would take more than 2 million new homes to resolve.
Yet, analysts at Goldman Sachs place the number at 3 million. Zillow’s estimate tops 4 million, while Brookings projects 5 million; McKinsey says 8 million. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans insist the shortfall is closer to 20 million.
Then there are the economists who contend there’s no shortage at all. The disparate projections reflect the challenge of quantifying the nation’s housing needs, a puzzle that rests on assumptions about how much a home should cost, how many people it should hold and how big its footprint should be.
Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.