Demand is someone's desire to make the jump from renting to owning. Demand is someone's risk tolerance for moving. Demand is someone's appetite for a house just slightly out of budget. Demand is someone's desire for a second or third home. Demand is all of the buying forces in aggregate, regardless of the cause.

You can want a house, but if you can't pay the market price then there's no demand from you at that price point. So maybe you make a lower offer or look elsewhere.

Demand is simple. We're watching what low demand is like right now.

Inventory has been low (people like their locked in low interest rates), but it has been inching steadily up as people move, die, change or lose jobs, etc. The minute the supply significantly outstrips demand, the pricing will collapse.

Demand will stay low until the economy and housing market improves.

> having roommates

People in cities and colleges have done that for decades. Not just "roommate" in the Friends sense where you have 2 people living in a 2 bed flat, but roommate as in sharing the same room - indeed 20 years ago I knew of some places where there where 5 people sleeping on 3 single mattresses in a single attic in London, with nuclear-dub style bunk sharing.

Demand for what people want (a place to call their own without having to live with strangers) is far in excess of the supply, and has been for at least the 25 years I've been an adult.

But not the rich, right?

The rich don’t need to cram more people in, everyone else does. True?

The rich sharing their homes with many other people would reduce demand as well I guess. But they don't because they can afford not to.

Some may argue that the rich help in the supply by building new houses, but that makes them even richer. If it doesn't, they don't bother (a point from this article).