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Digitization and the Housing Crisis

David Kaiserman | Rob Palatnick

Americans are struggling with everyday expenses from fuel and food to health care and housing. Polling consistently shows that housing affordability is a top concern for Americans, and the underlying data makes it clear why. Rents have grown faster than take-home pay, and down payments take longer than ever to save for—exceeding 20 years in some of the largest housing markets. There is not enough affordably priced housing supply to keep up with demand, pushing costs even higher.

What is it about the housing market that has given rise to such long-term and persistent cost increases? We believe that a crucial cause lies in the fact that the housing industry does not rely on what nearly every other industry has taken for granted for the past few decades—digitized identities.

We’ve spent our careers on opposite ends of exactly this problem. One of us watched housing markets seize up from the inside during the Global Financial Crisis, when nobody—not lenders, not investors, not regulators—could get a straight answer about what was actually happening, building by building and loan by loan. The other spent a career at the Depository Trust &........

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