If I’m reading this correctly, this is essentially a metric of how much raw land is available to potentially build houses on.
Well, here’s hoping most of those houses never get built. Denver needs more infill and investment in transit infrastructure - not more sprawling suburbs making traffic congestion even worse.
You are correct. The index measures “single-family vacant developed lots,” which are residential-zoned parcels that lack a primary dwelling but have existing infrastructure, such as water, sewer, electricity, and paved access, making them “shovel-ready” for construction.
During the pandemic housing boom, “we saw red-hot housing demand quickly absorb much of the available slack in the housing market.” In 2021, “active housing inventory for sale, unsold completed new builds, and available lot supply all plunged to historic lows.”
“Ever since the pandemic housing boom fizzled out in mid-2022, housing slack has been building back up in the housing market—especially in certain pockets of the Sun Belt.”
Zonda’s New Home Lot Supply Index, which “measures lot supply based on the number of single-family vacant developed lots and the rate at which those lots are absorbed via housing starts,” shows a clear shift.
Among the markets experiencing “some of the most significant year-over-year loosening of lot supply” were Austin, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, L.A., Seattle, and Jacksonville, Florida.
Despite the broader rise in lot availability, “around half of major housing markets are still what Zonda considers ‘significantly undersupplied.’”
However, “Zonda now considers Austin and Denver metro-area housing markets as ‘significantly oversupplied.’”
