'The New Normal' for Rental Households

Currently, nearly half of renter households are cost-burdened. The 2017 rental housing report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies posited that cost- burdened rental households are 'the new normal'.

Mijo Vodopic, senior program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, spoke to this 'new normal', telling the Urban Land Institute that, “With so many fellow Americans challenged just to make rent, how do we expect to remain competitive in a global economy, how do we expect to improve our overall public health, and how do we expect to invest heavily in ourselves or in our future generations?”

Compounding matters, a slowdown seems to be underway in new construction in many markets, according to the report. Although rental housing starts peaked in the first quarter of 2017, they are down nationally by 9 percent year-to-date through October 2017, with multifamily starts falling in nearly half (46) of the 100 largest metro areas in the United States in the 12 months ending August 2017.

Read more