Our Mission

Our Center produces a wide range of working papers, research briefs, and major reports about homeownership, rental housing, affordability, aging, remodeling, and more. Our annual State of the Nation’s Housing report has been the definitive source of information about US housing markets for over thirty years.

On campus and online, we host dozens of events each year to examine important housing policy issues. In addition to seminars, lectures, and livestreams, we convene conferences and symposia around the country, bringing together housing practitioners, researchers, and policymakers.

During the academic year, we offer a variety of fellowships and grant opportunities to graduate and  doctoral students across Harvard University. We also offer postdoctoral fellowships, an annual prize for  the Best Paper on Housing, and funding for student-run conferences and events.

Our interactive maps and tools offer visual representations of important US housing information, including house prices, affordability concerns, home improvement spending, domestic migration patterns, and more. Each interactive is accompanied by downloadable datasets. Additionally, many of our reports include extensive, downloadable data at the national, state, and metro level on a variety of measures, including cost burdens, demographics, house prices, remodeling activity, housing construction levels, and much more.

Several of the Center’s senior researchers teach housing-related courses offered by the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Kennedy School. Our researchers also advise theses and Policy Analysis Exercises, present guest lectures, and serve as visiting critics for studios. The Center’s faculty affiliates include scholars from across the university.