Zillow
- Adding a backyard cottage or mother-in-law unit to even a small fraction of single-family lots would broaden the mix of available homes and ease the affordability crisis
- Creating an additional home on 1 in 10 single-family lots would yield nearly 3.3 million new homes in the 17 metro areas analyzed
- The extent of new housing created this way could meaningfully slow price growth over the long term, even in the most expensive coastal metros
Allowing for even modest amounts of new density in the nation’s overwhelmingly single-family neighborhoods could lead to millions of new homes nationwide, according to a Zillow® analysis, helping alleviate a housing affordability crisis that has been decades in the making.
If the Los Angeles area, for example, continues to add housing largely as it has over the past two decades it could grow its housing stock by an estimated 14.5% over the next two decades. But if 1 in 10 single-family lots were redeveloped or otherwise allowed to accommodate a second home, the area’s housing stock could grow by 21% over the same period – or nearly 387,000 additional homes.
