Editor Pick – U.S. Housing
The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University has published the The State of the Nation’s Housing for 2007.
“After setting records for home sales, single-family starts, and house price appreciation in 2005, housing markets abruptly reversed last year. In 2006, total home sales fell 10 percent, starts tumbled 13 percent, and nominal house price appreciation slowed to just a few percentage points. Suddenly, it was inventories of unsold vacant homes that set records and homes in foreclosure that were making the news.
The Outlook
With the widening gap between what low- and moderate-income households can afford and what they actually spend on housing, enormous political will and resources are required to reduce the number of severely cost-burdened households. While more states may take action to stimulate the production of at least some affordable housing, little progress has occurred in easing regulatory barriers to such development. In the meantime, the need to address housing affordability problems is intensifying as the pressures grow more acute and spread up the income scale.
Still, trailblazing states offer useful approaches for others to follow. Perhaps most encouraging is the passage of inclusionary zoning ordinances that provide incentives for developers to set aside a fraction of units for affordable housing. According to a recent report released by the Brookings Institution, nearly 23 percent of jurisdictions in the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas have some kind of an incentivebased affordable housing program, while 15 percent have a dedicated source of funds for affordable housing. Indeed, well over half the population in the 50 largest metros lives in an area with an affordable housing program. While these measures are promising, it will nevertheless take much greater federal, state, and local efforts to address the nation’s affordability problems.”
3 Responses to “Editor Pick – U.S. Housing”
df • June 12th, 2007 at 3:31 am
why not make it clearer :
the recent recent rise in the percentage of home ownership was just a spike. Some 10% of current house owners should never have been allowed to borrow the money they have borrowed in order to buy the house.
the ownership society mantra was just a disguised borrow and never repay mantra.
IT is high time to release the helicopters and drop cash from the sky.
skeptic • June 12th, 2007 at 10:19 am
I don’t see why the government should interfere with the housing market, especially why it should need to create public housing. Shouldn’t the market take care of this? And if we let people get burned by their stupid decisions (lenders and borrowers alike) then we will at least prevent the moral hazard. Why should the resonsible tax-payer bail out the financiers and the ignorant buyers they sold mortgages to.
fencewalker • June 12th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Skeptic: In my opinion, you are 100% right, they should not!
I’m a faithful democrat, but if the dems or any other party persist in pursuing the bailout avenue, I’m jumping ship. A ridiculous proposition to bail out buyers and lenders who bit off more than they can chew with gambling fever over a ‘sure thing.’
