This makes sense to me. New homes in America tend to be located in suburban or exurban areas, where there’s land to build single-family homes, and where it’s often a long commute to job centers. This long commute may lower the desirability of these neighborhoods, especially in areas with heavy traffic. Additionally, in many parts of America it’s hard to find newly-constructed townhomes and condos in already built-up areas.

This is anecdotal, but a significant reason why I rent in the East Bay (eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area) instead of own in exurbia (think Lathrop or Los Banos) is because the commute is soul crushingly awful. Unfortunately I can’t afford to buy anything within a reasonable commute from my job (unless I wanted to live in a high-crime neighborhood), and so I rent.