In the Media

These mass deportations might worsen chronic labor shortages in the country and reduce the country’s ability to build and remodel homes, according to researchers at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS).

For many homeowners, their house will be one of their largest assets as they head into retirement. In 2022, median home equity for homeowners age 65 and over was $250,000, up 47% from $170,000 in 2019, according to a 2023 report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

More than 1 million Americans over the age of 65 lived with roommates they aren't related to in 2024 — a 16% increase from 2019, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

“There is broad agreement that a shortage of new homes is a major driver of our housing affordability crisis, and most policy attention has focused on reforming zoning to allow higher-density development,” said Chris Herbert, managing director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. “Far less attention has been paid to the role of building codes, which often make it difficult to create more affordable and appealing housing options.”

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies reported this month that “the number of cost-burdened households rose to record highs in 2024 as housing affordability remained a widespread challenge.”

In 2024, immigrants—both with and without legal status—accounted for more than half of construction-trade workers in Texas, California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia, according to Riordan Frost, a senior research analyst at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

According to the latest US Census data, the median age of homes is 40 years old, with nearly half built before 1980. That’s nine years older than the median age of homes in 2005. Millions of those homes have fallen into disrepair, according to a 2023 report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Nearly half of all renters were cost burdened in 2024, meaning they spent more than a third their income on rent and utilities, and 26 percent of them were severely burdened, meaning they spent more than half their income on housing costs, according to the most recent census data analyzed by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

In general, an ADU can add up to 25 percent onto a home’s value, per a Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies report, though that percentage is dependent on the ADU’s location, the market, and the quality of the build.

Average homeowners insurance premiums rose almost 25% from 2019 to 2024 in real terms. Such costs have contributed to a slump in the condo market, with prices at a decade low, and are one reason for rising rents.