In the Media

Climate change is on a collision course with the affordability crisis in U.S. housing — and renters are poised to fare the worst. That’s the conclusion of a new report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, which found that renters face the greatest risk from climate-related disasters striking their homes.

The reason that rents are rising so quickly is more people are competing for places to live. The rental vacancy rate fell to 5.8%—the lowest it’s been since the mid-1980s, according to a recent report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

There may have been a brief price dip in rental homes, especially high-end apartments, at the beginning of the pandemic. But last year showed a surge in demand across all price points sent rents soaring, according to Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University’s America’s Rental Housing 2022 report released Friday.

“The big thing right now that’s pretty obvious is just this crazy rise in home prices,” said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a research associate at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

Year-over-year spending on home remodeling grew by more than 9 percent from the third quarter of 2019 to the third quarter of 2021, to $357 billion a year, according to the Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Before the public health crisis, just 3% of landlords forgave rent when a tenant fell behind, the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University found. Yet during the crisis, more than 1 in 5 did.

An analysis of government data by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies found that 48 percent of renters living in rural areas and small towns had incomes below $25,000 in 2016.

University shutdowns also played a role in sending young adults back home, Daniel McCue, a researcher at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, noted in an analysis of March 2021 data from the Current Population Survey.

A recent study by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that one in four renters in the Twin Cities spend at least half of their income on rent.

“I think all of those factors will continue to pull on the DIY share of home improvement spending and potentially revert back to these longer-term trends,” Abbe Will of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies said.