How Much Housing Do We Need? 58,000: Sonoma County’s Housing Shortfall and Future Needs

Overview

Sonoma County’s housing affordability has been a barrier for thousands of local households who have struggled to make rent or purchase a home over the last two decades. Despite homebuilding peaking in the middle of the 1980’s with nearly 6,000 homes annually, homebuilding rates in the last twenty years have plummeted as median rents and home prices skyrocketed, and fewer homes were affordable to fewer households. This report answers two questions: 1) how much housing did we need but didn’t build in the last 20 years, and 2) how much housing do we still need to meet future growth?

Our current housing need is based on what we should have built in the past, and what we need to build for the future.