In the Media

Still, nearly half of all renters in the U.S. are paying 30% or more of their annual income on rent, according to a report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

A 2021 study from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard found that restrictive land-use regulations were significant barriers to producing needed housing, but many urban areas enforce minimum lot sizes to control congestion.

From the 1930s to the '60s, the federal government embarked in redlining, which was a racially explicit housing policy that provided home loans to white families and denied those same loans to Black families, says Center researcher Raheem Hanifa.

Growth in homeowner spending for improvements and repairs is expected to slow for the rest of 2022 and the first half of 2023, according to the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. The center’s Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity predicts homeowner improvement and repair spending repair spending will grow 17.4% this year to $431 billion

“Builders are becoming very cautious, because they are seeing rising inventory.” In the short term, Daniel McCue at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies said this could be a good thing for some buyers, “because builders will have to lower prices in the face of this declining demand.”

The United States has a massive shortage of affordable housing: 14% of all households — and nearly a quarter of renters — are considered severely burdened, meaning they pay more than 50% of their income toward housing.

“Property is nine-tenths of the law, says the cliche, so renters are screwed,” said Carlos Martín, project director of the Remodeling Futures Program at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. But, Martín continued, lots of renters want to see climate-focused improvements to their homes.

Miami has more “cost-burdened renters” than any other major metropolitan area, with 60% of its population spending 30% or more of household income on housing, according to a report released this year by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Soaring costs mean a family needs to earn more than $181,000 to buy a typical house in Greater Boston, according to data compiled by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. That’s nearly twice the region’s median household income of $93,537.

A buyer paying the median price ($660,000) for home in Greater Boston needs to earn more than $181,000 a year, nearly twice the region’s median household income, according to a recent study by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.