When the conversation turns to housing inventory, there’s no shortage of hot takes—and few are hotter than the ones shared in a recent HousingWire expert panel featuring Ivy Zelman and Logan Mohtashami. Both are known for their sharp, data-backed insights and no-nonsense delivery, and this panel was no exception.
So… are we truly in a housing shortage? Is affordability the real crisis? And if so, what can actually fix it?
Let’s dig into what Zelman and Mohtashami had to say—and what it means for agents navigating today’s market.
Logan: “If We Just Get Back to 2019 Inventory Levels…”
Logan Mohtashami isn’t convinced by the mainstream “we’re massively undersupplied” narrative. He breaks it down like this:
“If you take the NAR data going back to the early 1980s, normal inventory is between two to two and a half million… We had a very interesting model for the last 14 years, which didn’t work in the 80s, 90s or 2000s where back then inventory would rise with sales. But if 70% to 80% of home sellers are buyers — and then you have the millennials who started buying in 2013 — if mortgage demand grows that could slowly withdraw inventory because they’re taking that 20 to 30% off. That’s what we saw. But we never had home sales escalate out of control or prices escalate out of control. It was just too many people chasing too few homes.”
According to Mohtashami, the post-2010 market—with strict lending standards and a growing base of millennial buyers—behaved differently. Instead of inventory growing alongside sales (like it did in the ’80s and ’90s), it slowly declined as demand siphoned off supply.
But here’s the twist:
“If we just get back to 2019 inventory levels, I will never say the word low inventory ever. It’s just that we got into a place to where there was too many people chasing too few homes…”
To Mohtashami, it’s not a structural shortage—it’s a cyclical squeeze. And now that inventory is rising again in 2024, he’s hopeful:
“Why I love 2024 and 2025 is inventory’s growing. If we could get inventory to sales to grow together, that’s like the chef kiss. That’s the 1980s. That’s the 1990s. I would x out the 2000 period because that was a credit boom and bust that couldn’t be sustained, but that would be a healthier market.”
Ivy: “We Have a Shortage of Affordable Homes…”
Ivy Zelman isn’t buying the 3 to 5 million homes “shortage” figure, either, but for a different reason:
“We have a shortage of affordable homes. And we can’t get new construction to meet that demand.”
Zelman’s critique is clear: It’s not that we lack housing units, it’s that we lack homes people can actually afford. Her example hits close to home:
“I have 20-, 22- and 24-year-olds, and they’re fortunate they have an affluent mother. But they have a lot of friends that are graduating from college that can’t afford to even rent an apartment by themselves.
“And so, when you think about it, you could talk as much as you want about how many units might be short, but if you can’t offer, whether it be a rental unit at less than a thousand a month or the mortgage payment at a thousand dollars a month, who really cares? It doesn’t matter because we can’t provide whatever’s needed.”
So while headlines scream about national shortages, Ivy says the real issue is accessibility, not volume.
So… Is Housing Ever Affordable?
Logan Mohtashami’s take? Affordability is kind of a myth.
“I actually don’t even believe in the concept of affordable housing. What does it look like? When was housing ever affordable? …We had major inflation in the forties, prices took off; 1970s, home prices took off with inflation. Global pandemic, prices took off with inflation. The only time that didn’t happen—the housing bubble years, inflation didn’t take off; prices went off because it was a credit bust.”
The only time affordability improved—briefly—was during the 2008 crash, and even then, it didn’t lead to confident buyers.
“Millions of people buy homes every year. We have near 5 million total home sales the last two years. The only housing affordability thing that could get fixed is you build smaller and you get people to reduce the size of the home they want…
“We cannot build affordable housing. San Antonio is trying those little tiny houses not suitable for families. So this is a problem that’s not going to be fixed. The only way it solves itself is dual household incomes come in and they buy homes. And that’s kind of how the housing cycle has really worked for the last four decades.”
Mohtashami isn’t optimistic that government policies—or even most home builders—can fix this at scale. He points to dual-income households and life events (marriage, kids, etc.) as the driving forces behind homebuying, not affordability.
Zelman counters with a historical reminder:
“When you go back to the Great Financial Crisis and coming out in ‘09, we had record affordability in ‘09, and we still didn’t have a housing market that was working, and that was because of lack of confidence. The pricing of homes was still under pressure and we also had massive job losses. So I think even with record affordability, we didn’t have people willingly buying homes.”
Her argument: Affordability matters, but it’s not the only variable. Confidence, job security, and local regulations matter too. And yes, builders are shrinking homes to hit lower price points:
“We were kind of in that 2200+, 2,400 [square foot range]; we’re down to the 1800s right now. And just so you know, builders want to build even smaller, but a lot of municipalities will say you can’t go below 1600 square feet. So that’s another guardrail that communities put in place to mitigate the ability to buy affordable or build affordable housing, which is tough.”
What Would Actually Help?
If you’re hoping for a silver bullet from Washington, don’t hold your breath. Zelman had this to say about recent political proposals:
“Just listening to President Trump or Kamala Harris talk about housing was comical. Anyone that was listening to their proposals that could help affordable housing, none of that’s going to work. Federal land is not going to work. No one wants to live out there. Even the cows don’t want to live where a lot of that land is positioned in rural America.”
Her suggestion?
“One of the things you’re looking at today, which could be a stick for the administration to utilize, is to take funding away from states that won’t mitigate the regulatory impediments. Because when we look at why housing is so stuck, it’s at the local level, whether NIMBYism, you name it, it starts at the local level with the municipalities that are holding up entitlements…
“The cost for a developer they have to absorb, which we call impact fees in some parts of the country, could represent as much as 15% of the average selling price. So they’re already in the hole well before they even break ground.
“So whether it’s a big stick, take away funding, threatening funding, I think it’s a good thing… And maybe sharing in that the allocation of those impact fees that the builder has to absorb, whether it be police, fire schools, I think it’s an impediment for affordable housing.”
In short: the problem starts local—and so should the solution. If we want more housing options (and more affordable ones), local governments need to remove the red tape.
Key Takeaways
Here’s what this conversation means for agents on the ground:
- The inventory story is evolving. We may be on our way back to more “normal” supply levels, but don’t expect a flood of listings overnight.
- Affordability remains a major hurdle. But it’s more nuanced than just price; it’s about perception, confidence, life stage, and access to financing.
- Don’t rely on national narratives. Ivy and Logan show just how wide the gap is between national data and local realities.
- Get educated on your local policies. Entitlements, zoning, and NIMBYism directly affect what can be built and sold in your market.
- Be the local expert your clients need. Buyers and sellers are swimming in confusion. Your clarity is your superpower.
The biggest takeaway? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer.
As Logan said, housing has “worked the same way for four decades”—people grow, move, and form households. But the structures around them—prices, regulations, lending standards—keep shifting.
Your role as an agent isn’t just to sell homes. It’s to help your clients navigate this messy middle, armed with the latest insights and grounded in your market’s realities.
Because whether or not we’re undersupplied, one thing’s for sure: There’s no shortage of confusion.
