Our story

Why is it like this?

Before starting PANL, our combined experience included a Master of Architecture, finance and marketing degrees, a contractor’s license, and multiple years of design-build work for clients. As “experts” in the field, you’d assume we wouldn’t be surprised by the quotes we received. But we were shocked.

We forgot to account for a few factors that are making homebuilding incredibly challenging in the U.S. First off, according to Fannie Mae, the U.S. had a housing deficit of around 4 million homes as of 2019. And supply hasn’t met demand in the time since then. Some estimates place the current number closer to 6 million. If you’ve looked at Zillow and wondered why houses are so expensive, this is a big reason why.

To add fuel to the fire, there also aren’t nearly enough skilled construction workers to build the additional homes we need. According to the Home Builders Institute, “at least 90 percent of single-family builders responding to a survey reported a shortage of carpenters.” Overall, estimates put the current labor shortage around 300-400k workers for residential construction.

Add in supply chain issues resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and other global disruptions, and you’ve come up with a perfect storm to make homebuilding slow, expensive, and frankly unattainable for many people.