Published by Forbes.com | August 19, 2025
Population growth is ending in the U.S., so not much need for more housing. Even fast-growing regions will see fewer people moving in, with other area declining.
Home buyers and real estate agents agonize over the mortgage rate forecast and whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates. But the bigger story is not making headlines: Population growth is ending in the United States, which means not much need for more housing.
Housing demand and supply are critically local, so national trends seem less important. But a metropolitan area’s population growth is simply the national growth rate plus or minus a local variation. With the national population growth rate about zero, even fast-growing regions will see fewer people moving in.
Last year’s population growth came to about one percent or about 3.3 million people. (The data are estimated as of July 1 of each year, so the latest numbers are one year old now.) But most of the increase came from immigration net of out-migration. The U.S. natural increase—the excess of births over deaths—was just half a million people. The other 2.8 million people moved here from other countries.
Immigration began dropping in the months preceding President Trump’s second election. Now we have deportations and probably an increase in voluntary moves out of the country. If net immigration is currently zero, then our population growth is about 15 hundredths of one percent or roughly half a million people. We live with about 2.6 people per occupied housing unit, on average, so that half a million population increase implies a need for about 200,000 new housing units. In the last 12 months, we have built about 1.4 million units.
This top-level perspective understates the need for new housing, but only by a little. Some places are shrinking in population while elsewhere people are moving in from other parts of America.
