In the Media

One report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies last summer showed that while the U.S. was building more homes than it has in 50 years, it was still losing the lowest-income units faster than they were being replaced.

Nearly one-third of all US households spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2021, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies’ analysis of Census Bureau data.

The housing payments needed to buy a median-priced home reached $3,000 a month in March 2023, according to the State of the Nation’s Housing 2023 report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. This figure includes mortgage, insurance and property tax.

Three out of five renters aged 80 and older in the Boston metropolitan area pay more than 30% of their income on housing, Jennifer Molinsky, project director of the Housing an Aging Society Program at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, told the Boston Globe. One in five pays more than half, she added.

A 2020 report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University notes various ways thoughtful design can deliver high-quality, affordable housing in multifamily residential developments. Mechanical and plumbing systems may make kitchens and bathrooms fixed components of a house, but the report noted that building a single “wet” wall can make those spaces more efficient.

Only about 40 percent of rental households purchase renters insurance, according to a 2022 report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies by Harvard University, compared with 88 percent of homeowners who purchase coverage.

Among renters 80 and older in the Boston metropolitan area, three out of five pay more than that, said Jennifer Molinsky, project director of the Housing an Aging Society Program at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. One of five pays more than half, she said. “Much of the assisted living [that’s available], and many of the retirement communities are for higher income people,” Molinsky said. “People in the middle really have very little choice if they want to move to a [new] place.”

From 2019 to 2021, the share of renters spending more than 30% of their income on housing rose 2.6 percentage points to 49%, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

Between 2019 and 2021, the number of cost-burdened homeowners increased by 2.3 million households, to 19 million, according to a report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

Unable to trade up to nicer digs, locked-in homeowners have invested more in fixing up their current homes. The rise of remote working has reinforced this trend, with people adding extra office space to their houses. Remodelling expenditures in 2022 reached nearly $570bn, or about 2% of gdp, up by 40% in nominal terms from 2019, according to the Joint Centre for Housing Studies at Harvard University.