Despite the remodeling industry's relative strength during the pandemic, the cost and availability of both materials and skilled labor poses a significant headwind.
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.
Rental housing demand came roaring back in the second year of the pandemic, reducing vacancy rates and driving up rents. However, lower-income households that took the brunt of job losses still struggle to make rent, reinforcing the stark divide between higher- and lower-income households. The need for a permanent, fully funded housing safety net is more urgent than ever, and a key element of that support must be to protect existing rental housing from the threat of climate change.
In this paper, Benjamin Ward makes a set of recommendations intended to help policymakers design a scalable nation-wide downpayment assistance program in the United States. Specifically, the paper focuses on improvements to the downpayment tax credit that President Biden announced as part of his presidential campaign.
Older adult homeowners increasingly carry mortgage debt into retirement. The share of homeowners aged 65 and older with outstanding mortgages doubled between 1989 and 2016, while the outstanding loan to value ratio tripled from 13 to 39 percent over the same period. As part of a broader research agenda exploring links between mortgage debt, older adult welfare and equity, this research identifies changes in out-of-pocket health care spending around the time of mortgage payoff.
