Projections for 2022 show a robust average annual growth in home improvement spending of 13.8 percent across all 48 major metropolitan areas tracked, with owner expenditures expected to grow between 7.6 percent and 23.0 percent.
Rental housing demand came roaring back in the second year of the pandemic, reducing vacancy rates and driving up rents, according to America’s Rental Housing 2022.
Annual gains in homeowner improvement and maintenance spending are set to accelerate in the second half of the year and remain elevated through mid-year 2022, according to our latest Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA).
As the US economy continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic, households that weathered the crisis without financial distress are snapping up the limited supply of homes for sale, pushing up prices and further excluding less affluent buyers from homeownership. At the same time, millions who lost income are behind on housing payments and on the brink of eviction or foreclosure.
With funding from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 15 students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) will study and work on a host of pressing issues related to housing and community development this summer.
