That's a pretty important confounding factor. I wonder if there is anything that happened in 2020 that would've made acquiring new housing more difficult.
Seriously any "social science" that was done during the pandemic should probably be thrown out, because of the massive unprecedented alterations to all of society. Even if you found something out not impacted by the pandemic how would you know?
Relying on information about social behaviors and societal changes during 2020 without acknowledging the massive impact of the pandemic is like studying mortality in young adult men between 1940-1946 in Europe without acknowledging that there was a world war going on at the time.
We actually have built more housing where the population has been growing. 2006's wild speculation really killed the builders. But overall population growth is going down to nearly meet new construction.
We need before, during, and after studies. There's no reason to throw out the ones made during the pandemic, they just need to be put into a greater context and compared with what happens next.
