Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies Releases Annual Housing Report
On June 24, the National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) published an article discussing the release of The State of the Nation’s Housing 2015.
Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies Releases Annual Housing Report
Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) releases today its annual report entitled The State of the Nation’s Housing 2015. This year’s report highlights low homeownership rates and continuing renter housing cost burdens as areas of concern. The Joint Center’s report concludes that the housing market, buoyed by the persistent strength and demand of the rental market and continued employment growth, can regain some of the recovery momentum that was lost during 2014. The report also comments on the value of the Housing Credit and tax-exempt bonds, highlights the gap between housing needs and federal appropriations, and demonstrates the importance of preservation of at-risk affordable housing.
One of the major drags on housing recovery in 2014, according to the report, was the ongoing decline of homeownership rates. Homeownership rates in the United States continued their downward trend, with rates falling for the eighth straight year, marking a 20-year low with 64.5 percent in 2014. The report warns that this trend is not likely to dissipate in the near future; the homeownership rate in the first-quarter of 2015 was 63.7 percent. The report states that steady erosion of household incomes since the beginning of the recession and the tightening of credit by mortgage lenders are primary factors in homeownership rates being at their lowest levels in over two decades.
Please click here to view the article in its entirety.
Please click here to view The State of the Nation’s Housing 2015 [pdf].
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