As has been in the news, most parts of the country are having a housing shortage that has inflated prices due to several factors including: the inventory of homes has not recovered to the amount needed after huge disruption from the 2008 recession, high costs for materials/labor to build new homes, high interest rates (which have been much higher before and will hopefully go down), investment companies buying/building properties and outpricing individual buyers, people moving from higher-priced markets and having higher purchasing power, absentee landlords, and regulations that have not encouraged a mix of housing types that can “right-size” homes to meet people’s needs.