UCLA Housing Voice Highlights: Ep. 106. Mortgage Lending Standards with Kevin Erdmann
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Jan 28, 2026 Kevin Erdmann, a Mercatus Center scholar and author known for the Erdmann Housing Tracker, challenges the idea that the mid-2000s housing market was oversupplied. He explains closed-access, contagion, and open-access city dynamics. He discusses how migration patterns, lending shifts, and tightened underwriting after 2008 reshaped construction, mortgage access, and starter home availability.
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Bubble Was A Localized Shortage
- Kevin Erdmann argues the 2000s 'housing bubble' was actually a localized shortage driven by closed-access coastal cities.
- That shortage pushed migrants into contagion metros, which built to meet real demand rather than speculative excess.
Closed-Access Cities Displaced Residents
- Closed-access cities like LA and San Francisco had strict supply constraints that kept housing growth near 1% annually.
- That constraint forced higher-income residents to migrate out, creating demand spikes in contagion metros like Florida and Arizona.
Contagion Construction Met Real Demand
- Contagion metros experienced in-migration and built many homes to absorb displaced families from closed-access cities.
- Their construction was a rational response to migration, not evidence of national overbuilding.
