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| Didn’t We Tell You Affordability Was the Key Issue? |
| Written by Jonathan Smoke | |
| 06.12.2007 | |
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Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts) We aim to be on top of trends and key intelligence for our user community. Friday’s post turned out to be prescient as the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies released their 2007 State of the Nation’s Housing report. The key conclusion from their press release stated: “Still, the nation’s largest housing challenge remains housing affordability. ‘In just one year the number of households spending more than half their income on housing increased a startling 1.2 million to 17 million in 2005,’ notes Rachel Drew, Research Analyst. ‘Even if prices or rents soften for a period of time, the nature of US labor markets, the regulatory restrictions imposed on residential development, and the fiscal limits of government assistance to cost-burdened households will make affordability a long-term challenge.’ Some Americans try to escape these cost burdens by taking longer commutes and incurring higher travel costs, while others double up or live in substandard housing or undesirable neighborhoods. The prospects for a substantial easing of these problems are unfortunately dim.”
I will be reviewing the complete report this week and will share the key points I find. In the mean time, you can read a good summary in our Real Estate news in the “Overbuilding, Affordability Haunt Housing Market” article. 
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