America's Housing Crisis Is No Mystery

And just to add a little bit more to specificity to what Jason is saying in his spot on, but one in three Americans are considered housing cost burden.

So that's going to be spending the over one third of their income on housing.

And of course, we see this concentrated in more, right, more dense cities.

And I just want to point us to that three number.

Even the most affordable major cities, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit, are all above that affordable number.

So Pittsburgh is at 3.2 price per income.

Cleveland is at 3.4. St. Louis is 3.6. Detroit, 3.5.

If you look at the most expensive cities, San Jose is almost 12 price to income ratio.

L.A. is 11.

San Francisco.

These are massively high.

And of course, these have millions of people in them.

And these are even hitting global highs.

So the highest cities price to income ratio, Hong Kong is the highest at 14.4. And Sydney is 13.8 price to income ratio.

But our most expensive cities are expensive relative to the rest of the world.

And of course, these have just many people living in them.

And just to go back to your point, Paul, about would you want to live in your grandparents' house? Yes, houses are becoming more expensive.

There's no doubt about that, even if you control for inflation.

But something to keep in mind is that your average house in the 1950s was much smaller.

It did not have the insulation.

It did not have the central AC.

It did not have our most up-to-date amenities.

It oftentimes didn't have a garage.

So if you look at actually comparing baskets to baskets, even then housing is a little bit more expensive.

But it's important to note your average house in 2026 is going to be, you know, probably at least three bedrooms, maybe one and a half bath and maybe one to two car garages.