In the Media

New GSD research shows that compliance with the Massachusetts transit-linked zoning law is both more widespread—and more nuanced—than is often depicted in the media.

Higher-income households have been driving rental demand in the last five to 10 years, says Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, senior research associate at Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. That means a greater demand for buildings with premium amenities or space for a couple to grow their family.

About a third of households headed by someone 65 or older were “cost-burdened” in 2024, according to an analysis by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. That means they spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

On the whole, the bill strives to increase the U.S. housing supply, which suffered more than a decade of underbuilding after the Great Recession, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies' annual 2026 housing report.

The situation is similarly tough for buyers, with national prices for single-family homes averaging about five times the median household income, according to 2025 data analyzed last week by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Existing home prices are up 54 percent since 2020, and homes cost nearly five times the median income, well above historic norms, according to the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Between 2014 and 2024, the number of apartments renting for less than $1,000 a month dropped by about a third, according to a new report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. “It's a function of a lack of supply pushing up rents generally, and the fact that building new has gotten so bloody expensive,” said Chris Herbert, managing director at the Joint Center.

Existing-home prices are nearly five times the median income, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, well above what it was in the 1990s. Sales of existing homes have been mired in their worst slump in decades.

“Household growth follows job growth, and I think the trend in job growth of the last few years … has been slowing,” said Daniel McCue, senior research associate at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Housing is fundamental. We all need a roof over our heads. We all need someplace to raise our families, cook our meals, escape from the world. So it’s a cruel state of affairs that we seem to be getting it so wrong. That’s the idea at the heart of the "State of the Nation’s Housing," a report produced every year by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The 2026 edition, out June 17, is sobering.