Harvard’s 2025 State of Housing Report: Five Key Findings

In a piece for Smart Cities Dive, Ryan Kushner highlights five key takeaways from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies’ State of the Nation’s Housing 2025 report.

The report found that affordability is reaching historic lows, with home prices higher than ever — up 60 percent since 2019. Subsequently, the lowest number of homes sold last year since 1995. Over half of renters spent more than half of their income on rent in 2023.

Homeownership rates declined for the first time since 2016, with the largest decline in homeownership among people under 35. Homelessness reached record highs, up 33 percent since January 2020.

With the Trump administration cutting funds to federal housing programs, the report notes that states and cities will have to take a larger role in making housing affordable for their residents. Meanwhile, increasing supply remains key to reducing the homelessness and affordability crisis.

The report also highlights climate-related disasters as a growing risk to the housing supply, much of which is located in floodplains or other high-risk areas. “More than 61 million homes in the U.S. are currently in areas with ‘at least moderate hazard risk,’ the report states.”