Older homeowners aged 50-64 spent nearly 50 percent more on out-of-pocket pharmaceuticals after paying off their mortgage, or about $20 more each month.
While an unusually large number of people did move early in the pandemic and again in late 2020, the reality has deviated from media narratives in the months since.
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 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.
The pandemic’s financial consequences have been disproportionately borne by the nation’s renters, who have been more likely to report lost income due to the pandemic and to miss housing payments as a result. These missed rental payments also have implications for the nation’s landlords, but much less is known about how they have fared and how they have responded to this significant shortfall in rent collections.
