What would you like to know?

Answer

labour market

Builders face their own version of the same squeeze. Financing costs for development are elevated, materials and skilled labour remain expensive relative to pre-pandemic baselines, and in most high-demand metros the binding constraint is not builder appetite but land availability and permitting timelines measured in years. The result is that construction has concentrated in the segments where the economics still work — larger homes in outer suburbs and multifamily rental in select markets — rather than the mid-priced starter stock where shortage is most acute.

• A sustained fall in mortgage rates large enough to narrow the gap between existing and new financing — the single most powerful unlock, and the one least under any policymaker's direct control.
• Life events that override financial logic: births, divorces, job relocations and retirements, which accumulate steadily and eventually force movement regardless of rates.
• A meaningful increase in new construction, which adds supply without requiring an existing owner to sell.
• A labour market deterioration severe enough to force distressed selling — the scenario crash forecasts implicitly assume, and the one current employment data does not support.