In the Media

Currently, 50.9% of Colorado renter households are “cost burdened,” with housing taking up more than 30% of total household income and 26% of renters are “severely cost-burdened,” with rent occupying more than 50% of household income, according to data from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

According to The State of the Nation’s Housing report, released June 16 by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, more than half of all renter households lost employment income between March 2020 and March of this year.

"In the first quarter of this year, we found that about 7 million renter households were behind on rent, and of those about 17% thought that eviction was very likely in the next two months," says JCHS research analyst Riordan Frost. "If the eviction moratorium does expire, that group could be in a dire situation."

“These outsized increases have raised concerns that a home price bubble is emerging,” said Daniel McCue, a senior research associate at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. “But conditions today are quite different from the early 2000s, particularly in terms of credit availability. The current climb in prices instead reflects strong demand amid tight supply, aided by record-low interest rates.”

The Harvard report said a looming housing crisis would disproportionately impact people of color and low-income tenants, further dividing the haves from the have-nots as the wealthy are simultaneously fueling a hot housing market and driving home prices up.

New research from Harvard University shows that 2 million homeowners are behind on their mortgages and 6 million renters are behind on their rent payments.

The annual State of the Nation’s Housing from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies highlights the disparities in the housing market that were exacerbated by the uneven impact of the pandemic.

So what’s driving these prices? Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies has a good checklist of what is, and isn’t, pushing prices up.

For millions of Americans, said Chris Herbert, “the opportunity to live in homes that are good quality and in communities that are on an upward trajectory are limited.”

“The short story is that we simply haven’t been producing enough housing,” said Daniel McCue, with the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard.