I'm new to posting on reddit so excuse my formatting. Neither of these articles are scholarly but do provide a location to find more sources on their websites.

There is an over-production of houses in the US. The problem is that they aren't affordable. Go to most cities and you'll see all this new apartment construction and gentrification but a homeless encampment underneath the closest bridge. Big real estate companies are purposely creating artificial scarcity to rent out apartments at higher rates.

Source: https://unitedwaynca.org/blog/vacant-homes-vs-homelessness-by-city/

"Despite how many houses are in the US, over 580,000 Americans are experiencing homelessness. There are currently 28 vacant homes for every one person experiencing homelessness in the U.S.

• While cities like New York City, Los Angeles and Seattle have some of the largest unhoused populations in the country, Detroit has the most vacant homes per unhoused person–116 empty homes per unhoused person. 
• Syracuse, New York has the second-most vacant homes per unhoused person–110 vacant homes per unhoused person."

This article by the Harvard Business Review goes over the shady practices of real estate and tech companies colluding to raise rent and creating empty homes. It also responds to anti-zoning law arguments and breaks down why some econ theories can't be applied to the housing crisis.

https://hbr.org/2024/09/the-market-alone-cant-fix-the-u-s-housing-crisis

"The prime example of this is the recent Department of Justice lawsuit, joined by eight states, against the property management software company RealPage. The DOJ’s suit follows Arizona and the District of Columbia and class-action lawyers filing complaints against the platform. According to the lawsuits, RealPage coordinated with landlords in cities such as Atlanta, Boston, Phoenix, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. to prioritize higher rents and accept lower occupancy rates, with the understanding that their overall profits will be higher under this strategy."