Scott Galloway argues permitting power has shifted to homeowners who want supply restricted, and says the US should build five to seven million homes.
Galloway cites completions falling from about 2.1m homes in 1973 to about 1.6m in 2024 while population grew from about 211m to over 340m.
Aziz Sunderji says the median first-time buyer is now 40 and that infrastructure limits are real but sometimes serve as cover for neighbors who simply resist change.
Owners Need Rising Prices While Too Few Homes Get Built
Housing is stuck because owners need rising prices, buyers need falling ones, and the country builds far fewer homes per person than it once did. Most policy works on demand, which lifts prices without adding supply. The guests disagree on details, but they treat more building, despite its cost and density hurdles, as the lasting answer.
Takeaways
Owners and buyers want opposite price outcomes. The median first-time buyer is now 40, first-timers are a record-low 21 percent of buyers, and four in five buyers already owned a home. About two thirds of households own, so politicians struggle to back lower prices.
Homebuilding has not kept pace with population. Completions were about 2.1m homes in 1973 and about 1.6m in 2024, while population rose from about 211m to over 340m. Duplexes to fourplexes fell from 7 percent of new homes in 1979 to 1.1 percent in 2025.
Building is hard for reasons beyond NIMBYs. Sunderji says density rules, landmarking, costly construction and shared infrastructure all constrain building. A 12-story building costs about 40 percent more per square foot than a three-story one. Infrastructure limits are real but sometimes used by people resisting neighborhood change.
Demand-side subsidies raise prices without adding homes. Galloway argues the first-time buyer tax credit pushes prices up without new supply. Scanlon says policy targets demand because supply is hard to change. Sunderji suggests cheaper Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac financing for apartment construction as a better subsidy.
Rent control is a weak tool and vouchers are better. Sunderji says economists broadly agree rent control is arbitrary and discourages supply. He favors Section 8 vouchers, where tenants pay about 30 percent of income, though only one in four eligible people get them. New York's freeze covers roughly one million apartments.
Housing and family formation are tangled together. In 2021, 80 percent of married adults owned homes versus 48 percent of never-married adults. Millennials trailed boomers by 18 points in ownership at age 30 and by eight at 40, largely because they leave parental homes later.
Locked-in owners and large homes tie up stock. Low mortgage rates keep owners in place, and about 40 percent of UK homes have two or more spare bedrooms. Scanlon notes boomers hold much of the larger housing stock and suggests helping them downsize.
Listener questions and pushback
Home sizes. Builders earn more from bigger homes, and minimum lot sizes set about 75 years ago limit small homes. New York and California are moving to allow subdividing.
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On this episode 3
Show 1
Wall Street landlords. Scanlon and Sunderji agree they are not a large share nationally, though they matter in cities such as Atlanta and Jacksonville.
Blue states. Sunderji disputes the Abundance argument from Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson that blue-state regulation explains high prices, saying density is the real constraint.
Big cities. Sunderji says cities concentrate opportunity, and cites research that even if every Manhattan building were a skyscraper, rents would fall only about 15 percent.