Last updated: November 2, 2026
Zoning, entitlement and housing supply, by the numbers
Housing starts and permits, housing-shortage estimates, new-home cost shares, entitlement value stages, and upzoning effects, from published sources.
Two different kinds of number sit behind this name, and they must not be mixed. The first kind measures the housing pipeline: starts, permits, and completions, counted by the Census Bureau each month. The second kind measures the value of permission itself: what share of a new home's price is the finished lot, what share is regulation, and how much a parcel gains as it moves from raw land to tentative approval to full entitlement. The first kind tells a reader how much is being built. The second tells a reader why the right to build is worth paying for.
What the latest numbers show is a pipeline under pressure and a permission market that still rewards certainty: September 2026 starts and permits both fell year over year, while the entitlement ladder still prices a fully entitled parcel at roughly two-thirds more than the same land raw — about 100% of potential value against about 60% — before any finished-lot premium.
The figures
| Figure | Value | Trend vs prior period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| National housing shortage, United States | 3.7 million units as of Q3 2024 | ▼ Down slightly Prior: 3.8 million units as of Q4 2020; 5.8 million units added to stock since 2020 | Freddie Mac, Housing Supply: Still Undersupplied (November 26, 2024) |
| Housing starts, United States, September 2026 | 1,221,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate (−5.2% month; −7.4% year) | ▼ Down Prior: revised August rate 1,288,000; September 2025 rate 1,319,000; monthly and annual changes not statistically significant at Census margins | U.S. Census Bureau / HUD, Monthly New Residential Construction, September 2026 (released October 20, 2026), as reproduced by Calculated Risk |
| Building permits, United States, September 2026 | 1,400,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate (−0.2% month; −3.0% year) | ▼ Down Prior: revised August rate 1,403,000; September 2025 rate 1,444,000 | U.S. Census Bureau / HUD, September 2026, as summarized by Mortgage News Daily |
| Single-family starts and permits, September 2026 | Starts 859,000 (−4.6% month); permits 845,000 (−4.0% month) | ▼ Down Prior: single-family starts 900,000 and permits 880,000 in August | U.S. Census Bureau / HUD, September 2026, as reproduced by Calculated Risk |
| Housing completions, United States, September 2026 | 1,192,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate (+2.2% month; −14.0% year) | ● Mixed Monthly rise against a large annual fall; September 2025 rate 1,386,000 | U.S. Census Bureau / HUD, September 2026, as reported by Mortgage Professional America |
| Finished-lot share of new-home price | 13.7% of sales price (fall 2024 survey) | ▼ Down Prior: 17.8% in 2022; construction 64.4% and builder profit 11.0% in 2024 | National Association of Home Builders, Cost of Constructing a Home — 2024 |
| Government regulation share of new-home price | 26.4%, or $131,734, on a $499,500 average new-home price | ● Baseline National estimate; local figures vary widely; includes zoning-application and related costs among other items | National Association of Home Builders, 2026 Legislative Priorities brochure |
| Entitlement value ladder, Southwest market example | Raw land ~60%; tentatively approved ~80%; fully entitled 100%; finished lots ~10% premium | ● Baseline Practitioner framework, not a national average; see article 1 for the stage definitions | Sunbelt Development & Realty Partners, Understanding Land Entitlement |
| Entitlement third-party costs, by stage | $25,000 to over $100,000 to tentative approval; $100,000 to over $250,000 tentative to final | ● Baseline Practitioner ranges in one market; complex projects exceed them | Sunbelt Development & Realty Partners, Understanding Land Entitlement |
| Entitlement duration | 6 months to 1 year in the cited Southwest market, sometimes longer; 6 to 12 months in a university overview; wider practitioner range a month to a few years by scope | ● Baseline Ranges differ by jurisdiction and complexity and are never averaged on this page | University of Alabama ACRE overview; Sunbelt Development & Realty Partners |
| Auckland upzoning effect, permits per capita | Approximately doubled within five years of the 2016 reform becoming operational | ▲ Up Synthetic-control estimate versus a no-reform counterfactual; about three-quarters of residential land upzoned | University of Auckland Economic Policy Centre, Working Paper No. 017 (September 2025) |
| Auckland cumulative permits, seven years on | Approximately 52,200 above the counterfactual, about 46% of the 112,300 permits issued over the period | ▲ Up Seven-year cumulative figure from the same synthetic-control study | University of Auckland Economic Policy Centre, Working Paper No. 017 (September 2025) |
| California accessory units, share of new construction | Less than 1% before 2017 to approximately 20%; more than 23,000 legally completed in 2023 | ▲ Up After 26 amendments from 2016 to 2024; 60-day ministerial review on residentially zoned parcels | California Senate Bill 9 legislative analyses (2025) |
| California housing planning target, sixth cycle | More than 2.5 million new homes planned, including no less than 1 million affordable to lower-income households | ● Target Planning target, not production; production in the past decade under 100,000 units per year in the same analysis | California Senate Bill 9 legislative analyses (2025) |
How to read these numbers
Included: Freddie Mac's Q3 2024 shortage estimate; Census Bureau / HUD September 2026 starts, permits, and completions; National Association of Home Builders 2024 cost shares and 2026 regulation share; practitioner entitlement value, cost, and duration stages; the Auckland synthetic-control upzoning study; and California accessory-unit and planning-target figures from legislative analyses. Excluded: shortage estimates quoted without a method or date (published estimates range from about one million to ten million depending on method, so no single alternative figure is presented as a headline here); undated practitioner claims presented as dated figures; and any blending of gross-booking, revenue, and permit definitions, which describe different things.
Practitioner entitlement figures are market-specific frameworks, not national averages, and are labeled as such wherever they appear. Forecasts and planning targets are labeled as forecasts and targets, not actuals.
Disclaimer: Figures on this page are aggregated public estimates assembled for information only. They are not investment advice, legal advice, or a professional opinion on any specific case, claim, project, or purchase. Original reporting and the underlying surveys remain the work of the sources linked above; this page summarizes their published figures with attribution and adds no proprietary dataset.
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Changelog
- November 2, 2026: Initial edition — Census September 2026 pipeline figures, Freddie Mac shortage estimate, builder cost and regulation shares, entitlement value and cost stages, Auckland upzoning effects, and California accessory-unit figures established.