The issue is especially acute in some Sun Belt states amid evidence that investors often can outbid other buyers, keeping starter homes out of the hands of would-be owners, especially suburban Black and Hispanic families. Some local officials in those states are pushing for increased regulation of investor purchases, but many Republican lawmakers oppose such controls.

Patrick Barkey, an economist at the University of Montana and task force member, is skeptical of that timeline.

“You’re trying to solve in a month what we haven’t been able to solve for 20 years,” he says.

Outside of the early pandemic downturn in 2020, that plunge is the biggest since 2008, during the nadir of the Great Recession.