In Episode 06, Part 2 of One Room at a Time, PadSplit CEO Atticus LeBlanc sat down with Kurt Carlton, President and Co-Founder of New Western, to discuss why the fastest path to affordability doesn’t start with building. It starts with activating the homes we already have.
New Western is one of the largest real estate investor marketplaces in the country, working with hundreds of thousands of investors nationwide and acquiring a new home approximately every 13 minutes. That scale gives Carlton a front-row seat to what’s working and what’s holding housing back.
Affordable housing is a competitive environment
One of the most important reframes from the conversation is that affordable housing is not a passive market. It’s highly competitive, with far more demand than available options.
As Carlton explained, “Affordable housing is a competitive environment, no matter what you hear in the news. Everyone is desperate for affordable housing. Coliving is one of those strategies that lets investors outperform while still serving real demand.”
This is where models like PadSplit’s coliving approach come into play, and it’s why we have a partnership with New Western to help their investors get into shared housing.
Why existing housing beats new construction
Even though it can be slow, new construction will always play a role in housing supply, but it certainly can’t be the only near-term solution to affordability. Rising material costs, labor shortages, financing constraints, and long permitting timelines also increase costs.
Meanwhile, millions of homes already exist across the U.S., many of them vacant or underutilized.
For Carlton, the math is straightforward: the most scalable source of affordable housing today is existing housing stock, activated by local real estate investors who know their local neighborhoods better than anyone. These investors are often misportrayed as “greedy institutions,” but in reality, they’re one of the largest producers of affordable, move-in-ready housing in the country.
“A year ago, we had 250,000 investors on our marketplace. Now we have 300,000 in a year,” said Carlton. “A lot of people are coming into this space, and I think they’re being drawn into this vacuum by the opportunity. There are 15 million vacant homes in the U.S., and everybody wants an affordable one. And the only major source of affordable single-family houses, freestanding homes, is through the existing stock. That continuum of vacant homes. And that’s hard to do on a national level. It takes a local real estate investor to do that.”
Getting out of the way: The role of regulation
The second major theme of the conversation centered on regulation, not whether it’s needed, but how easily it can hinder progress. Many PadSplit hosts know this refrain all too well.
Carlton pointed to Texas as an example of a more pragmatic approach: “What we’re seeing in places like Texas is just a willingness to let the process move. It’s not about perfection — it’s about practicality. If you don’t hit certain timelines, there are alternatives, and that matters.”
PadSplit hosts in our Houston market experience this as well. Despite being the fourth largest metro in the country and its rapid population growth, the city has maintained relatively lower rent increases and home price appreciation compared to other major metros. The reason? Fewer regulations on how housing can be delivered and adapted over time.
As Carlton put it: “When you tell people that Houston has no zoning, they can’t even imagine what that looks like. But it works, and it works well. Supply has been able to meet demand over decades.”
What this means for affordable housing
Accelerating affordable housing doesn’t require a single breakthrough technology or massive federal program. It requires aligning incentives and removing unnecessary friction so supply can show up where demand already exists.
At PadSplit, this conversation reinforces what we see every day across our marketplace: when investors, operators, and policymakers align around practical solutions, housing affordability can scale — one room at a time.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation with Kurt on One Room at a Time: padsplit.com/podcast.
