Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies

Looking for a book or show to binge over the holidays? We asked our staff to recommend the books, shows, podcasts, and other content they enjoyed this year and they did not disappoint. https://lnkd.in/e78VsUtf

More homeowners are opting out of insurance altogether, says Steve Koller. The number of US homeowners going without insurance soared from 5% in 2019 to 12% in 2022. @businessinsider.com https://lnkd.in/epaYVN4m

The highlight of the JCHS year: our annual Yankee Swap. It's festive, it's competitive, and no gift is safe. Happy holidays!

The number of cost-burdened renter households hit yet another record high last year. Affordability has worsened up and down the income scale, leaving the lowest-income households with less left over than ever before, write Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, Alexander Hermann, and Sophia Wedeen in a new research brief. https://lnkd.in/ea_Zaw-g

In recent years, millennials — not immigrants — have driven the rise in new households, especially during the pandemic. “It’s important to push back against the argument that housing for one group comes at the cost of another,” says Riordan Frost. https://lnkd.in/dsnpfsPJ

As the population grows more diverse, it is increasingly important to capture how different racial/ethnic groups fare in the #housing market. But the standard way of categorizing households may not fully capture the racial/ethnic diversity that exists. A new paper by Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, Alexander Hermann, Daniel McCue, and Samara Scheckler uses the race/ethnicity of all adults to identify and explore the characteristics of 13.5 million multi-race households in the US. https://lnkd.in/e7mEf6hA

Rising insurance premiums are contributing to the growing costs of homeownership: from the Great Recession to today, homeowners insurance prices have increased 74 percent while home prices have increased more than 40 percent, writes Steve Koller in a new post on our blog. https://lnkd.in/gpQrJavt

The biggest bump in housing unaffordability last year was among homeowners who are dealing with a triple whammy: elevated interest rates, extremely high housing costs, and insurance rates that have increased, says Peyton Whitney. https://lnkd.in/eGJgYsVU

The US housing stock is aging and sliding ever further into disrepair. And minor modifications can be daunting and expensive, especially for the nearly one-third of households headed by seniors who are cost burdened, meaning more than 30 percent of their income is eaten up by housing costs, writes Michelle Cottle at The New York Times. https://lnkd.in/ePKwmNP6

In Texas, California, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia, immigrants make up more than half of construction trade workers, according to Riordan Frost, a senior research analyst at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. “We will absolutely have a labor shortage,” said a longtime Texas developer. https://lnkd.in/eqpGPVE6