Julie Weil

Well, if you don't become a homeowner, how does that change your entire economic future?

Homeownership is a huge economic choice that shapes your whole reality in the economy.

And if that first rung of the ladder is gone, it's hard to get on the ladder at all.

And if what you can afford and what you really need for your family, maybe your one or two people, is a small house, that's harder to find because there are simply fewer of them being built.

There are many places where you're simply not allowed to build the kind of denser, smaller homes that some people are looking for.

There are land use regulations.

Maybe you can only build a single family home on the lot or the lot has to be a certain size.

Most of the country, there are zoning requirements that are going to constrict what you can build.

A conversation I have over and over and over is with people who are usually millennials, usually in their early 30s, say.

And these are people who often have good jobs.

They're making a middle class or even upper middle class income.

But they look at the housing market, especially in some of the really expensive coastal cities, and they just say, even with a good job, this is just not something I can afford.