The Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) recently released the State of the Nation's Housing 2024 report, showing a significant increase in both rent and housing prices, which are up to 25% and 47% since 2020.

The study showed that the number of cost-burdened homeowners grew by three million ticking to 19.7 million between 2019 and 2022. This comes as the number of households that are cost-burdened has been growing since 2019. Currently, 22.4 million, or half of all renter households, were cost burdened in 2022, up two million since 2019. The greatest impact is among households with incomes under $30,000.

 
Meanwhile, housing demand continues to rise despite potential buyers facing high-interest rates and low-inventory. This comes as fewer homeowners put their houses on the market to hold onto their pandemic era interest rates.

According to the report, multifamily completions rose by 22% or 449,900 in 2023, securing the highest annual level in over three decades. In the single-family market, new homes make up a third of available inventory since 2021. During the last four decades, new construction made up a mere 14% of the inventory on average.

Further, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), existing home sales fell for the third straight month in May. With low inventory and strong demand, this marks the eleventh consecutive month of year-over-year median sales price upticks. NAHB also shows that existing home sales fell 0.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.11 million in May. In a recent poll according to the latest BMO Real Financial Progress Index, 71% of potential homebuyers are waiting for rate cuts before making the jump.

On a year-over-year basis, sales saw a 2.8% drop. Also, first-time buyers fell to 31% in May, a 2% drop from 33% in April.


The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) fell from 78.3 to 72.3 in April, bringing pending sales down 7.4%, year-over-year.