West Coast Cities Slam Brakes on Housing Production Amid Worsening Crisis
July 25, 2023 | Jack Witthaus, Katie Burke, Randyl Drummer and Lou Hirsh | CoStar News
Up and down the West Coast apartment construction sites are falling quiet despite high demand in a worsening housing shortage.
Fewer multifamily projects have broken ground this year from Seattle to San Diego in one of the slowest starts to apartment construction in a decade. In San Jose, no apartments have broken ground after more than 7,000 started construction last year. In Seattle, 3,433 apartments started building in the first six months, a drop of nearly 60% from the same time last year.
Analysts and real estate executives are already preparing for the lack of building in coming years because apartment construction can’t simply catch up later with projects taking roughly two years to build. Eric Bolton — CEO of Tennessee-based Mid-America Apartment Communities, one of the nation’s biggest apartment owners — said at a real estate conference last month in New York that by 2024 or 2025 the drop in apartment construction will mean demand further overshooting supply.
