A housing shortage is often cited as one of the main drivers behind the housing crisis, and by that measure, metro Atlanta continues to lag, with a shortfall of more than 100,000 homes, according to a new report.
Housing Underproduction in the U.S. 2024, an annual report published Wednesday by Up For Growth, a coalition of housing advocacy groups, suggests the situation in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta area improved slightly since its report last year.
But the metro still has a shortage of 101,173 homes in 2022, compared to 105,260 in 2021, according to data the group shared with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The report relied on the most recent U.S. Census data through 2022. The authors of the report defined “housing underproduction” as “the gap between the housing we have and the housing we need.”
Up For Growth Policy Director David Garcia said there were some promising signs in the South, including in Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi, which had narrowed the gap even amid strong population growth. But Atlanta was among the 10 metro areas where the deficit is worst, ranking eighth overall.
He said the slight improvement in production in the metro area could be due to the high rate of homebuilding relative to household growth. Even so, the shortfall of more than 100,000 homes is “no small number,” he told the AJC.
“They’re building slightly above our baseline ratio for what we consider to be healthy housing growth, and so I think that is probably in line with what you’re seeing on the ground, with a lot of new housing units being delivered in Atlanta and in the region,” he said.
The high cost of renting has hit Atlanta residents hard in recent years, and the report found that more than half of renters in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta area are cost-burdened, or spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs.
Georgia accounted for 124,000 of the nation’s 3.85 million “missing” homes, according to the report — meaning the state’s shortfall is highly concentrated in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta area, Garcia said.
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However, the report says nationwide the gap has narrowed slightly for the first time since it began measuring housing underproduction in 2012, from 3.89 million in 2021 to 3.85 million in 2022 — or about 50,000 units, the first time that has occurred in a decade. In 2012, the shortfall was 1.65 million.
“The U.S. produced more single-detached homes in 2022 than in any of the 15 previous years, and new apartment construction reached its highest level since 1987,” the report states. “Yet, new housing starts began to decline in 2023 and continue to fall in most metro areas due to high interest rates and construction costs.”
Up For Growth CEO Mike Kingsella said no state was meeting its housing needs and urged Congress to “act swiftly on a bold housing supply agenda.”
“We must encourage localities to eliminate outdated and artificial barriers, invest in innovative building technologies, fund community-serving infrastructure, and prioritize resources for the production and preservation of affordable homes. Without decisive, sustained federal action, this crisis will only deepen,” he said in a statement.
Both presidential candidates have embraced housing as a campaign issue in a year when the cost of renting or buying a home is roiling voters in the battleground state of Georgia.
Harris has proposed tax incentives to build 3 million homes in her first term, wants to offer $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, and has promised to crack down on corporate landlords and curb high rents.
Like Harris, Trump says he will open up federal lands for more housing, will accelerate housing production by reducing inflation, and has pushed a theory, discredited by some economists, that immigrants are to blame for the housing shortage.
In Atlanta, meanwhile, Mayor Andre Dickens has made affordable housing a centerpiece.
He plans to create or renovate 20,000 affordable housing units by 2030. According to the city of Atlanta’s affordable housing dashboard, he is more than halfway to that goal since he took office at the start of 2022, with more than 6,000 units delivered and more than 4,000 under construction.
According to the report, though the housing shortage is besetting communities across the nation, there were signs of progress in the West and a worsening shortfall in the middle of the country.
“Every state in the West showed marginal improvements in housing underproduction, but from the Rockies to the Mississippi River, housing underproduction is almost uniformly worsening,” the report states.
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