Housing in 2018 Suffers from the Same Infirmities That Brought on the Great Recession

If you type "housing crisis" into Google, "2008" is no longer the first result. The subprime mortgage crisis that toppled the global economy just a decade ago has been supplanted on Google Trends by "housing crisis 2018." This time, the crisis isn't an overabundance of housing; it's a chronic housing shortage. But economist Kevin Erdmann argues that the 2018 housing crisis is just the second act of the same tragedy.

With local governments issuing fewer building permits and millennials beginning to buy their first homes, millions of Americans struggle to find affordable housing in 2018. The crisis is arguably the worst in California, where about one-third of all city dwellers