The State of the Nation's Housing 2005

Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies

House prices, residential investment, and home sales all set records again in 2004. But higher short-term interest rates and the strongest one-year price appreciation since 1979 made it more difficult for first-time buyers to break into the market. With low-wage jobs increasing and wages for those jobs stagnating, affordability problems will persist even as strong fundamentals lift the trajectory of residential investment.

Appendix Tables (Excel)