> The best evidence for how much housing we need to build lies in the prices that people pay today. No. The best evidence is the total number of households in

> The best evidence for how much housing we need to build lies in the prices that people pay today. No. The best evidence is the total number of households in the US compared with the total number of residences. How has that been tracking? Demand for housing has been going up. This demand is not always for a primary residence (or even for properties intended to be rented out as a primary residence). Ireland learnt the hard way that rising demand (as evidenced by rising prices) does not mean a shortage of residences that people could live in. Their shortage quickly turned to a surplus when the GFC hit (though they've somehow managed to engineer another accommodation crisis in Dublin since).