In the Media

Before COVID-19, half of all renters were moderately or severely cost-burdened, with at least 30 to 50 percent of their household income going toward housing costs.

“Older owners living in places with the highest livability are living in places that score particularly highly in transportation, housing and amenities,” said Jennifer Molinsky, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University and a Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design.

There’s no question that California rents are super high: Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that in 2020, 53% of California renters are cost-burdened.

According to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, between 2012 and 2017, the US lost 450,000 rental homes priced between $600 and $999 a month and lost 3.1 million homes renting for less than $600 a month. At the same time, the number of apartments renting for more than $1,000 rose by five million.

“The remodeling market is bouncing back from the initial shocks caused by the pandemic, as homeowners continue to spend significant time in their home and are adapting it for work, school, and leisure,” said Chris Herbert, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Homeownership has become increasingly unaffordable to working families in recent years, a trend worsened by the coronavirus pandemic. There’s a way the government can ease some of that burden, particularly for first-time buyers, who are disproportionately minorities: Do what’s needed to reduce the unnecessarily high cost of mortgage insurance.

In a 2019 report, the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University zoomed in on the growing demand for subsidized housing and the dwindling number of income-eligible older adults receiving federal subsidies and made another disquieting projection: If nothing changes, an additional 2.4 million of the poorest senior citizens in the United States will have no access to affordable housing by 2038.

“Once those moratoriums are lifted, landlords are going to expect that those back rent payments are made up, but the question is: How will they make those up?” asks Chris Herbert, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The number of households with people age 80 and over rose 71% from 4.4 million in 1990 to 7.5 million in 2016, according to Harvard’s “Housing America’s Older Adults” report. The report predicts that within the next 20 years, the number of households in this group will double.

Older Americans are the group most likely to own a home, but 46% are carrying mortgage debt into retirement, up from 24% three decades ago, according to the NIRS report, which cites research from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.