In the Media

Over the past three decades, the share of homeowners ages 65 to 79 with a mortgage rose from 24% to 41%, while median mortgage debt surged by 400%, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. Among homeowners 80 years and older, the numbers are even more dramatic. The share with mortgages jumped from 3% to 31%, and median mortgage debt increased by 750%. “For a lot of people, I think this isn’t a choice. It isn’t a financial strategy. It’s more of a reality,” said Jennifer Molinsky, director of the Housing an Aging Society Program at Harvard’s Joint Center.

Chris Herbert is managing director for the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, a think tank whose signature annual publication, the State of the Nation’s Housing, documents the challenges in the market. “When the top line numbers say we need to have more units, it gets a lot of attention, as it should,” Herbert said. “But I think the attention needs to be focused on the fact that it's not just any old units, but smaller ones that we need,”

Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies’ most recent quarterly outlook of home improvement projects that spending on home renovations will continue to increase this year, despite economic uncertainty. Rising home prices and signs of a solid economy have supported the outlook for higher spending on home improvement, but that could change if the housing market and economic outlook worsen, said Carlos Martín, director of the JCHS Remodeling Futures Program.

Back in April, Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies put out its latest report on the outlook for the remodeling market. And it looked decent — slow but steady growth through the next year — with spending around half a trillion dollars. But it didn’t take into account the effects of the president’s so-called “Liberation Day.” Or of a downturn in existing home sales, said the center’s Carlos Martín. Which suggests “that there may be a bit of retrenchment in some of our remodeling home improvement activity,” said Martín.

“There is no one perfect measure of the housing shortage,” said Daniel McCue, a senior research associate at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. “The easiest thing to look at is the housing market and the way prices are growing here. That is indicative of extreme demand that the state isn‘t meeting.”

Born from the mid-1990s to early 2010s, Gen Z’s ages range from 15 to 30. They represent 47% of recent U.S. renters, and comprise 25% of all U.S. renters, according to Zillow. As of 2023, there were 9.1 million Gen Z renter households, says Alexander Hermann, senior research associate at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Estimates of the national housing shortage last year varied widely, from 1.5 million houses and apartments to 20.1 million; since then, another 1.6 million houses and apartments have been built. Most experts estimate a shortage of 1.5 million to 5.5 million, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

A recent report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that half of all renters in the US spend over 30% of their income on rent and utilities, which is more than at any other time in history. With more people spending a greater share of their earnings on rent, it’s essential to understand a tenant’s rights.

The U.S. home price index jumped 46 percent from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to last year. Add to that a budding insurance crisis driven in part by climate change, and a history of reactive rather than forward-looking federal policy responses—these are the ingredients of a crisis. In a March 25 briefing, Carlos Martín of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies alluded to this risk as he spoke about the current state of climate adaptations in relation to U.S. housing. JCHS postdoctoral fellow Steven Koller followed with a detailed analysis of climate change impacts on the residential insurance market.

“Accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, have been proposed as a way to add housing stock to address the country’s housing crisis,” according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. These “independent living spaces,” the Center notes, are on the same lot as a larger primary dwelling, and have their own kitchen, sleeping quarters, and bathroom.