America is short about 4.7 million homes — and for the first time in years, that number stopped climbing. New Zillow research published this week puts the 2024 increase at just 43,000 homes, a fraction of recent years. But the more useful finding for anyone weighing a move is the map: the shortage is brutally concentrated in a handful of coastal metros — and Chicago doesn’t appear on either of Zillow’s worst-off lists.
What the new numbers say
Zillow measures the deficit as families “doubling up” — sharing a home with another family — minus homes sitting vacant and available, built on Census survey microdata. In 2024: roughly 8.2 million families doubled up against 3.4 million available homes. The gap grew by 257,000 homes in 2022 and 159,000 in 2023; in 2024 it grew by just 43,000. Construction, in other words, nearly caught up with new demand for the first time since the 2008 crash.
Affordability tells the same story: the share of for-sale listings a median-income household could afford fell from about 54% in 2021 to 33% in 2023, held flat in 2024 — and Zillow’s more recent data show it improving since 2025. The typical U.S. home still costs roughly 50% more than in 2019, so “no longer getting worse” is the honest ceiling on the good news.
The shortage has a geography — and this isn’t its center
Measured by families doubling up per available home, Zillow’s most severe 2024 deficits are Boston (5.3 families per available home), San Diego (4.7), Salt Lake City (4.2), Portland (4.1), and Los Angeles (4.0). Measured by sheer size, the worst gaps are New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Chicago — the country’s third-largest metro — is on neither list.
To be precise about what that does and doesn’t mean: Zillow didn’t publish a Chicago-specific figure in this analysis, and absence from the two worst-five lists is not the same as having no shortage. But for a metro this size to miss the by-size list — where big markets are structurally favored to appear — is consistent with the pattern Zillow itself documents: metros with larger deficits tend to have fewer listings a median-income household can afford.
The local tension worth naming
None of this feels like relief if you live here: a March 2026 poll found housing affordability is now Chicago voters’ top concern, ahead of crime for the first time in years. Being absent from the worst-shortage rankings doesn’t make property taxes, insurance, or rent feel small — and the cost pressures we’ve documented here, from insurance premiums to tax bills, rise regardless of how many homes are on the market.
And on the supply side, Chicago is at least moving: our analysis of the city’s permit data found 698 new-construction permits issued in the first half of 2026, up 4.8% from last year, with activity spreading beyond the usual North Side names.
If you’re deciding where to live
The practical read: every published measure of where the shortage bites hardest points at coastal metros, not here. For a mover comparing markets, that’s a real advantage — provided you budget for the costs that do bite in Chicagoland: insurance, property taxes, and the commute.
Sources & data
- Zillow Research — Orphe Divounguy, “The National Housing Deficit Stopped Getting Worse in 2024” (July 15, 2026; Census ACS/IPUMS microdata through 2024)
- Illinois REALTORS — March 2026 poll: housing affordability as Chicago voters’ top concern
- KCM Desk — Chicago new-construction permits, H1 2026 (City of Chicago Data Portal)
Figures verified against the sources above as of July 16, 2026. Zillow’s analysis does not publish a Chicago-metro deficit figure; statements about Chicago reflect its absence from the published rankings, as noted in the text. Spot an error? Corrections come first.
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