Source: Multifamily Housing News

Date Published: 06.25.2026

Link: How the Affordability Crisis Could Be Solved Within a Generation

Research from NYU’s Urban Lab (in partnership with the National Multifamily Housing Council) asserts that the U.S. housing affordability crisis is solvable within a generation of roughly 17 years if the right policies are put in place. Our study, published as the Housing Affordability Toolkit, finds that a sustained 13 percent boost in private-market housing production would return output to early-1970s levels, even as the population has grown by nearly two-thirds since then. The research asserts that half of U.S. renter households (over 22.4 million) are currently cost-burdened, and identifies two distinct problems. First, chronic undersupply that burdens middle-income renters, and second, the roughly 10.1 million extremely low-income households who will never be served by private housing without subsidies. A three-pronged approach is recommended combining expanded subsidies and rental assistance, preservation of non-subsidized rental housing, and local deregulation, with tax abatements and faster approval times singled out as the most effective and fast-acting tools (potentially unlocking 4.3 million or more new units through deregulation alone), while rent regulation is flagged as the weakest policy tool for solving the crisis at scale.