Since the housing industry began to recover from the Great Recession, most developers, builders, and architects have focused on market-rate and luxury properties. These segments helped them reap healthy profits by charging what a market would bear. Now, many regions have peaked and are starting to see increasing inventory, softening prices, and squeezing profits due to higher costs for land, labor, materials, and government compliance fees. But at the opposite end of the spectrum, affordable and workforce housing sales have climbed, and more industry professionals are noticing the huge lack of inventory and the pent-up demand.