What Wharton experts say about buying real estate:
FERNANDO FERREIRA SAYS THAT “HOMEOWNERSHIP MATTERS FOR HOUSING WEALTH. If you look at the recent past, it’s incredibly valuable for building up wealth. You can do anything that you want with that. You have options, especially upon retirement.” (source)
BENJAMIN KEYS SAID IN 2026 THAT “WE’RE GOING TO EXPECT NATIONAL HOUSE PRICES TO BE RELATIVELY FLAT OVER THE COMING YEAR, and those national house prices being flat are going to hide a lot of interesting variation across the country.” (source)
JOSEPH GYOURKO SAYS THAT AMERICA’S HOUSING SUPPLY PROBLEM IS “A LONGER-RUN PROBLEM THAN I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT BEFORE WE DID THE RESEARCH.”
He describes how the response to housing shortages is different from the past: “America once responded to demand by delivering more density, but it does no longer. This suggests that not only is America failing to deliver housing in its most productive metropolitan areas, but we are also failing to deliver housing in our most desirable neighborhoods,”
Gyourko also highlights how unaffordable housing in the Sunbelt markets is indicative of a wider problem. “This is an important change, and why that’s important is where’s the job growth in America? The answer is in those Sunbelt markets,” Gyourko said. “We would make a much wider swath of America unaffordable in terms of housing, so it’s a big deal.” (source)
