In the Media

Immigrants’ impact on the housing market has taken on new urgency as homebuying has become much more expensive, said Riordan Frost, a senior research analyst at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. “It is important to acknowledge that immigrants play a role in household growth, and often a substantial role,” Frost said. “But what’s really defined the affordability crisis that we have had since the late 2010s and the pandemic has been native-born household growth.”

The dwindling supply of low-rent units is only worsening cost burdens, according to a report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. In 2022, just 7.2 million units had contract rents under $600 — the maximum amount affordable to the 26 percent of renters with annual incomes under $24,000. This marks a loss of 2.1 million units since 2012 when adjusting for inflation.

Millions of people across the U.S. live in places that are falling into disrepair, even becoming uninhabitable, making a massive shortage of affordable housing worse. They are disproportionately lower-income and Black or Hispanic, and many are seniors on fixed incomes. But a patchwork of repair programs — federal, state, local and nonprofit — are largely underfunded, with years-long waitlists.

Here, at the housing court, is where the numbers that define that crisis — inflation, rising rents and property values, the scarcity of affordable housing units — become a painful reality. To buy a single-family home in Boston, you need a household income of $217,000, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Housing affordability is a top issue in the presidential election and has become a focus for both major candidates. The ability to purchase a home is near its worst levels since the 1980s. And half of American renter households spend at least 30% of their income on housing, which is up sharply since 2000, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Chris Herbert, managing director of Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, said in a statement that rising interest rates and the pandemic-era spike in housing demand are to blame for rising costs — not immigrants. “While immigrants do add to overall housing demand, they cannot be blamed for the recent surge in home prices and rents that took off in 2020 and 2021, as immigration reached its lowest levels in decades due to the pandemic,” Herbert said.

Spending slipped into contraction this year for the first time since the aftermath of the 2008 mortgage meltdown, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The latest reading of the center’s Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity forecasts a return to growth that will push annual spending to $477 billion by this time next year.

As the Earth heats up, severe weather — like the floods that damaged the Saladins’ home — is getting more common. Meanwhile, the cost of home insurance is also rising. So are utility bills during intense heat waves. That’s taking a profound financial toll on retirees who live on fixed incomes, many of whom also have looming medical and housing costs associated with aging. “These are all significant financial burdens to older adults,” says Jennifer Molinsky, who directs the Housing an Aging Society program at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Daniel McCue, a senior research associate at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, said record home price growth was one driver of cost burdens, but also rising property taxes and insurance premiums. These have combined with high interest rates to create punishing pressure, even as many Americans are earning more money.

It’s a longstanding building code for most buildings with over nine units to have two stairwells, and one with roots in fire safety. But authors of a new report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University and the design firm Utile say getting rid of the requirement would cut down on construction costs and let developers build on more of the small, unused lots in the Boston area.