State Economist: Oregon Needs 111,000 More Housing Units

State Economist Josh Lehner is reporting that Oregon has underbuilt housing by 111,000 units in recent decades:

Unfortunately the industry is running into supply side constraints. In general these include the lack of financing, particularly for land acquisition, development, and construction loans, which contributes to the low supply of available land and buildable lots. Layered on top of those are local land use, zoning and parking requirements, permitting processes and design reviews, and the like which are generally well-intentioned, but can reduce the timeliness and number of units being built. Furthermore labor is tight, particularly for an industry that has seen zero productivity increases in recent generations. It will take more workers to built more units. -- Josh Lehner. Read more.