In the Media

In addition to a portfolio of innovative projects, The State of Housing Design addresses concepts including disguised or “gentle” density — that is, building more housing that respects neighborhood context — and communal development that together can redirect current design practice.

The desire to grow older in one’s own home — rather than having to move in with family or to a retirement home — is common among many generations. In 2021, 88 percent of older adults, defined as people at least 65 years old, lived in their own home, according to a report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

It’s striking how quickly the affordability crisis has gotten worse, as the pandemic and remote work have shifted where people live and what type of home they’re looking for. Median home prices have surged across the country in comparison to median household income — you can toggle this timelapse from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and see for yourself. Estimates of how many more housing units we need nationwide vary, but finance giant Freddie Mac puts it at nearly 4 million.

“I do think that we’re talking more about multi-generational communities,” said Jennifer Molinsky at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. “And I think that there are a lot of people who want to be surrounded by people of all ages and have those daily interactions.”

Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies — which forecasts spending on home remodeling and repairs, including in outdoor spaces — anticipates this downward trend will endure for the rest of 2024. Still, says Abbe Will, associate director of the center’s Remodeling Futures Program, it’s important to keep in mind that everything is relative.

The early years of the pandemic were a bonanza for home renovations, said Carlos Martín at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Since then? “Well, it’s been a wild ride,” he said. Mortgage rates were at record lows, and people were stuck at home with a lot of extra time and extra money to tinker around the house. He said spending on home renovations spiked in 2021 and 2022. “Now what we’re going through is a correction and a stabilizing,” Martín said.

Researchers at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies reported millennials are leaving urban areas at a rate similar to previous generations, even though they’re living in the city at a greater rate than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers did at their age.

In 2022, the median sale price for a single-family home was 5.6 times higher than the median household income, higher than any point on record dating back to the 1970s, according to a 2024 report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The bill’s reintroduction comes as the nation faces an unprecedented shortage of affordable housing. In 2022, a record half of all Americans spent more than 50% of their income on rent, a January report from Harvard University found.

A new report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that in 2022, a record half of U.S. renters were “cost burdened,” spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. About 27% of renter households spent more than half of their income on housing.