U.S. Housing Pressure Atlas

Where is housing
underbuilt and overpriced?

A data-driven screening of 75 major metros — ranking where weak construction activity overlaps with high rent benchmarks relative to income. Every number is sourced from public federal data. Every input is downloadable.

Color by

National pressure map

Circle size = population · color = overall score

Supply vs. burden

Click a dot to select · hover for detail

Permits per 1,000 households →

Renter burden % →

Metro rankings

75 metros · sorted by overall score

#	Metro	Overall	Underbuilt	Overpriced	Permits/1k HH	2BR FMR	Income	Burden %

Compare metros

Selected metro

Select a metro

—

Underbuilt

—

Overpriced

—

ZIP rent benchmarks

HUD SAFMR 2BR · ZCTA geometry

County breakdown

Data sources

Every input is public and verifiable

Limitations

Single-year snapshot. No time series — you cannot see whether a metro is getting worse or improving.
Permits are a noisy proxy. Metros with large multifamily pipelines can look well-supplied on permits while still having affordability problems, because permitted units are not necessarily affordable units.
FMR is a lagging indicator. Fair Market Rents are backward-looking and tuned for the voucher program, not real-time market rents. Metros with fast rent growth may appear better than they are.
No vacancy, household growth, or structure mix. These factors shape housing pressure but are not yet included.