There's never been such a severe shortage of homes in the U.S. Here's why

Emerson Claus has been building houses for 45 years. But he has never faced delays like he is now trying to get basic building materials. "I had a client ask me to add a door," he says at a job site outside Boston. "We just waited six months to get it."

"That's a door in a frame," Claus says, exasperated. "That's kind of crazy." He says appliances can be even worse. "A dishwasher, if you can find the model you want right now, you might wait a year for it."

By , the U.S. is more than 3 million homes short of the demand from would-be homebuyers. Pandemic-related supply chain problems aren't helping. They'readding tens of thousands of dollars in cost to the typical house. But the roots of the problem go back much further — to the housing bubble collapse in 2008.