Firstly, the cost of not having a house for a prolonged period in the north half of the US is death (in the winter). Secondly, there are a lot of other really bad failure cases. For example, houses burning down, poisoning people (via lead, asbestos or others), destroyed in earthquakes, etc. A lot of these can have immediate and severe negative costs for both the people living in them and for society as a whole.
While I was hyperbolic in diminishing the cost of not having a home, my point of regulating any new housing to the point it costs more to build than can ever be made back is a direct cause to the fact many areas no longer have sufficient housing for residents and the housing that does exist costing more than it's worth.
