Joint Center For Housing Studies of Harvard University
January 25, 2024 by Every year, Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies comes out with a report on the rental housing market. The leitmotif for this year’s is the rise of unaffordability for cost-burdened renters even as rents deaden. The state of rental housing stock is one of the main causes of unaffordability. In 2022, 22.4 million renter households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities. This is an increase of 2 million households over three years and negates any improvements in cost-burden rates recorded between 2014 and 2019 Among this demographic, 12.1 million had housing costs that consumed more than half of their income, an all-time high for severe burdens. Although there is steady multifamily housing production in larger buildings, the volume of low-rent units is moving in the opposite direction. For example, between 2010 and 2022, the total rental supply increased by 4.3 million units to 48.1 million units. Newly constructed buildings accounted for a majority of this. Multifamily buildings with 20 or more units grew by 3.3 million, to 12.3 million units. Rentals in small multifamily buildings with 2–4 units, a property type that tends to be more affordable, increased by just 103,000, to 8.3 million units. The supply of the low-rent units continues to shrink. In 2022, 16% of units had contract rents below $600, down from 22% of the rental stock in 2012. Meanwhile, the share of units renting for $1,400 or more nearly doubled, from 21% to 38% of units. Low-rent units serve as a mainstay of affordable housing for households with lower and moderate incomes. In 2022. 60% of households living in these units earned less than $30,000; 36% had annual incomes less than $15,000. If we were to use a 30% percent income calculation, then most of these households can afford no more than a monthly rent of $750 and $375 respectively.