Key points:
- US housing crisis deepens with 69% of Americans saying housing costs are too high.
- Majority of renters and homeowners struggle with unaffordable housing costs.
- High housing costs may reshape US political power by 2030 Census.
A new set of surveys and reports from the Searchlight Institute underscores the urgency of the U.S. housing crisis while revealing that Americans remain divided on how to solve it. The findings show widespread agreement that housing is unaffordable, yet there is little consensus on whether the path forward should focus on building more homes, regulating costs, or both.
The Searchlight Housing Poll, conducted in late July with more than 2,100 adults, illustrates the depth of concern. A majority of respondents said housing costs are too high. The topline numbers show that 69 percent of Americans said their housing costs were “too high,” while just 25 percent said they were “about right.”
Among renters, the concern was even greater, with nearly three-quarters saying their costs were unaffordable.
The poll revealed sharp partisan divides. Democrats and Republicans were nearly evenly split on their presidential preferences in 2024, yet both groups identified housing as a major problem.
What differed was their sense of the solution.
Many Democrats leaned toward regulatory approaches, while Republicans favored deregulation and incentives.
One survey item asked whether “the government should do more to lower housing costs even if it means more construction in my community.”
Fifty-nine percent agreed, while 32 percent disagreed. That margin showed majority support, but also demonstrated that a large minority of Americans remain resistant to new development.
The survey highlighted how affordability is experienced across demographic groups. Younger respondents were far more likely to express frustration, with 81 percent of those under 35 saying costs were too high.
Black and Hispanic respondents also reported greater housing burdens than white respondents. But even among homeowners, nearly half said their costs were higher than they could comfortably manage.
While the public is united in its sense of crisis, it is deeply divided on whom or what to blame. A separate academic study, The Folk Economics of Housing, led by UC Davis law professor Christopher Elmendorf along with political scientists Clayton Nall and Stan Oklobdzija, sheds light on this contradiction.
The authors wrote, “The mass public’s views about the price effects of housing supply shocks are weak and unstable—significantly more so than their views about the price effects of supply shocks in other markets.”
They added that voters “do have a clear set of ‘folk economics’ beliefs about who is to blame for the high cost of housing—and some strongly-held preferences concerning what should be done about it.”
According to their findings, “developers and landlords bear the brunt of the blame.”
The study found that price controls, restrictions on big investors, and mandates that developers provide below-market units were among the most popular responses among voters. Elmendorf and his co-authors warned that these preferences may not reduce costs in the long term and could, in fact, reduce the amount of housing that gets built.
This misunderstanding has major policy consequences. Economists broadly agree that restrictive zoning and slow permitting are central drivers of America’s housing shortage. Yet public opinion does not always align with the evidence.
Voters may support restrictions on development out of fear that new construction will change their neighborhoods or reduce their property values, while also demanding relief from rising costs. This contradiction makes it harder for policymakers to pursue supply-side solutions, which often provoke local opposition despite their long-term benefits.
The Searchlight Institute’s report Winning the Census argues that the consequences extend beyond affordability. It warns that the 2030 Census could reshape political power across the country, and that housing will play a critical role in determining which states gain or lose congressional representation.
States such as California, New York, and Illinois are projected to lose seats, while Texas, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, Utah, and Idaho are expected to gain. The authors noted that between 2020 and 2024, California lost more than one million residents, with high housing costs cited as a leading cause of outmigration.
“One key lever: Build more housing and lower housing costs,” the report stated.
It noted that governors have immediate tools at their disposal that do not require new legislation. By using executive authority, they can act on permitting, state-owned land, and modular construction in ways that could make a difference before the 2030 Census.
The report recommended several strategies. One is repurposing excess or underutilized state-owned land for housing development.
A 2019 executive order in California directed agencies to identify and expedite such sites for affordable housing. That effort has already produced more than 4,300 units in the pipeline.
Massachusetts has pursued a similar approach, identifying 100 state-owned sites with the potential to yield nearly 10,000 homes over five years.
Another strategy is streamlining state-level permitting.
Although most housing approvals occur locally, state governments still control aspects of environmental review, infrastructure connections, and building permits.
Some governors have used their authority to impose deadlines and accountability on agencies, with requirements that application fees be refunded if timelines are not met. These measures are designed to prevent bureaucratic delays from slowing projects.
The report also encourages governors to invest in off-site construction, such as modular housing factories, which can reduce building time by as much as half. By supporting these facilities with federal funds and state housing trust resources, states can speed up the pace of new housing delivery.
Even incremental progress could make a difference. Past census counts have shown that a state’s congressional representation can hinge on margins as small as a few hundred people.
Public opinion, however, remains a significant obstacle.
While most Americans agree that housing is too expensive, there is no consensus about which solutions should take priority.
In the Searchlight Housing Poll, 62 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that “new housing construction is necessary to make housing more affordable,” but only 48 percent said they would support an apartment complex being built in their own neighborhood.
The gap between abstract support and local opposition underscores the persistence of “not in my backyard” sentiment.
The divide also reflects generational and racial differences. Younger adults, especially those under 35, were more likely to favor building new housing and supported a wider range of policy interventions.
Black and Hispanic respondents, who report higher rates of cost burden, expressed stronger support for government action than white respondents.
At the same time, both homeowners and renters overwhelmingly identified affordability as a serious problem, showing that the concern crosses demographic lines.
For policymakers, the findings point to a dual challenge. They must both address the structural barriers that limit housing supply and confront the misconceptions that shape voter preferences.
Efforts to expand zoning capacity, speed up permitting, or subsidize construction may be necessary to improve affordability, but those steps alone may not satisfy a public that wants to see landlords and developers held accountable. Balancing these demands will require political leadership as well as public education.
The broader implication of the Searchlight Institute’s work is that housing is not just a matter of economics but also of democracy.
The ability of states to retain and attract residents will shape their representation in Congress and, by extension, the distribution of political power in the 2030s. If high-cost states continue to lose population, their voices in Washington will diminish. If fast-growing, lower-cost states continue to expand, they will gain influence. The outcome will help determine the political balance of the next decade.
In that sense, the housing crisis is both a local issue and a national one. It affects where people live, how they vote, and how they are represented. It affects economic opportunity and social mobility. And as the Searchlight reports and the academic research make clear, it is an issue that cannot be ignored.
Americans may not agree on every solution, but they overwhelmingly agree on the problem. As one topline figure from the survey put it plainly: “69 percent say their housing costs are too high.”
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Breaking News Housing State of California
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Affordability Census Christopher Elmendorf Housing Crisis land use Public Opinion Searchlight Institute