Harvard's 2017 State Of The Nation's Housing Throws Some Surprises
Senior Research Associate at Harvard's JCHS, Daniel McCue picks 10 findings in the 2017 report that surprised him. Here's his list
1) For-sale inventories tighten further
For the fourth year in a row, for-sale inventories dropped ending 2016 with 1.65 million homes for sale or 3.6 months of supply. 6.0 months' inventory is considered a balanced housing market.
2) New home supply remains constrained
Only 9 million new housing units were added in the last decade. This pace is the slowest in any 10-year period dating back to 1970s and way lower than the 14-15 million units added in the 1980s-1990s.
3) Single-family construction finally outpaces multi-family construction
For the first time since the great recession, single-family construction outpaced multi-family construction.
4) Smaller homes find takers
Increased construction of smaller homes (less than 1,800 sq ft) pushed median home size slightly lower.
5) Rental market remains strong
Rentals continued their strong performance with rents declining in just 10 markets of the 100 analyzed. Loan volume, vacancy and construction levels remain strong.
6) Big disparities among Metros
While the national housing market is definitely strengthening, different metro areas have seen widely different levels of price appreciation. For instance, in some coastal metros prices are up 50% or more whereas in certain Southern or Mid-western metros prices are below their 2000 level, after adjusting for inflation.
7) Homeownership may be bottoming
Per the study, homeownership rate flattened in 2016 and first-time home buyers accounted for a higher share of home buyers than in 2015.
8) White-Black homeownership gap at its highest since WWII
Black homeownership is 29.7 percentage points below white homeownership the biggest difference since WWII.
9) Poverty growing, concentrating, and suburbanizing
Number of people living in poverty increased by 14 million from 2000-15 and 54% of the country's poor live in high-poverty neighborhoods (poverty rates of 20% or more)
10) Rural and Suburban poverty rising faster than Urban poverty
Number of poor living in high-poverty tracts in dense, urban areas grew by 46 percent between 2000 and 2015, the number of poor living in high-poverty tracts in moderate- and lower density suburban areas more than doubled.
Mr. Daniel McCue's entire article can be read here.
The Study report can be found here.
