America is getting worse at building new homes

OVER A DECADE on from its almighty bust, Nevada’s housing market was on a roll. Since 2015 house prices have risen by 10% a year, not far off the dizzying price growth of the years leading up to the financial crisis. In 2019 just 2% of houses in Nevada lay empty, close to a record low—and quite a change from the early 2010s, when abandoned properties with “No Trespassing” signs blighted the suburbs of Las Vegas. Yet even before the pandemic, something was amiss with Nevada’s housing market. Though it looks as if there was money to be made, housebuilding has been remarkably weak (see chart).