Construction is the laggard among falling costs, but no longer standing still. Modular and prefabricated construction is reducing labor and material waste. Mass timber is permitting taller buildings with lower carbon footprints. 3D-printed concrete construction has moved from demonstration to small-scale commercial use. The cost of producing housing is beginning to fall, slowly.
The cost of housing the human inside that housing, however, is governed by something else entirely: land. The technological cost curve and the political-economic cost curve point in opposite directions in this category. Until the question of land ownership is taken on seriously, the falling costs of construction will land in the value of the lot, not in the affordability of the home. Shelter is the category where the political question is most visible and most decisive.