Most renters spend more on housing than any other basic necessity. Our recent lunchtime seminar examined new research that shows how rental affordability varies by household type, household income, and metro area.
Spending on home improvement and repair is expected to grow as initial concerns of a pandemic-induced downturn have largely dissipated, according to our latest Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA).
Joint Center for Housing Studies
of Harvard University
The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies helps leaders in government, business, and the civic sectors make decisions that effectively address the needs of cities and communities.
In anticipation of the presidential election, Senior Fellow and former Freddie Mac CEO Don Layton describes how GSE reform might play out under different administrations.
Today, more than twelve years into conservatorship, the path forward for the reform of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), is in some ways again as uncertain as it was five or ten years ago.
The share of older households with debt secured by their primary residence more than doubled between 1995 and 2016. This study uses the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) to examine the sources of this shift.
In the past decade, housing finance policy discussions have also been heavily focused on whether the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), i.e. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, should continue in their current form or something different on their path to exiting conservatorship. Unfortunately, the stability of the housing finance system never quite seems to make it to the policymaker front burner.
