Enterprise: Community Developments: JCHS' New Report Highlights Continued Affordability Challenges in the Rental Market

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• Today, the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) at Harvard University released The State of the Nation's Housing 2018, its annual assessment of the housing market, demographic trends and housing challenges faced by U.S. households. The report highlights a number of topics, including that renter households are still widely cost-burdened, the nation's multi-family housing inventory remains tight at the lower end of the market, and federal housing assistance to low-income households continues to fall short of demand. According to JCHS, 20.8 million renter households were cost-burdened, paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing, and nearly 11 million renter households were severely cost-burdened, paying more than 50 percent of their income on housing. Learn more about JCHS' new housing report in Enterprise's blog post.
  
• Yesterday the Union of Concerned Scientists released Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate. This report estimates that within the next 15 years, nearly 147,000 existing homes and 7,000 commercial properties—currently worth $63 billion—are at risk of being flooded an average of 26 times per year. It also points out that by the end of the century, as many as 2.4 million of today's residential properties and 107,000 commercial properties — worth $1.07 trillion today —will be at risk of chronic flooding, properties are estimated to currently house about 4.7 million people. Finally, the report explains that coastal residents, whether they own homes or not, will be affected as “shrinking property tax bases prevent cities and towns from fully funding schools, emergency services, and infrastructure repairs, or as property tax rates rise for all residents to compensate for those properties devalued by flood risks.” (UCS, June 18)

Courtesy of Enterprise