Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University | America’s Rental Housing 2017

After a decade of broad-based growth, renter households are increasingly likely to have higher incomes, be older, and have children. The market has responded to this shift in demand with an expanded supply of high-end apartments and single-family homes, but with little new housing affordable to low- and moderate-income renters. As a result, part of the new normal emerging in the rental market is that nearly half of renter households are cost burdened. Addressing this affordability challenge thus requires not only the expansion of subsidies for the nation’s lowest-income households, but also the fostering of private development of moderately priced housing.