Housing Affordability

Live, Work and Play: Where to Maximize Take-Home Pay and Job Opportunities

Where we live has an enormous influence on how we balance the competing demands of living, working and playing. We all (well, most of us) need to work, and communities with stronger labor markets widen our options. We all need a place to live, too, but housing is more costly in some places than in others. And our capacity for play comes out of everything left over from the fruits of our labor after taxes and housing costs – the price we pay to live in a civilized society.

Aaron Terrazas • Mar 16 2017

Close to Home: Why Stay-at-Home Parenting is Increasingly a Luxury

The share of U.S. children with a stay-at-home parent has plummeted since the 1970s, a result of changing demographics and social norms. With housing costs and child care among the two largest budget items for many working families, the shifts help explain both growing demand for child care and the evolving work-life balance of many U.S. families.

Aaron Terrazas • Mar 15 2017

A Picture’s Worth: Driverless Cars

Switching to a driverless system could eliminate roughly two-thirds of the current cost of a typical Uber ride

Elizabeth Kimn • Mar 14 2017

How Driverless Cars Could Help Solve our Affordable Housing Woes

When it comes to housing our workforce, there are substantial economic gains to be had by enabling more workers to move to growing cities for high-paying jobs, or at least by creating an efficient way to commute between areas with affordable housing and areas with good jobs. Driverless cars promise to help us with both.

angelag • Mar 13 2017

Savings on Auto-Pilot: How Much Less Could Driverless Car Commuting Cost?

Thanks to ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, the cost of getting a door-to-door ride of a few miles today is less expensive than ever. And looking ahead, switching to a driverless system could eliminate roughly two-thirds of the current cost of a typical Uber ride (even using very conservative assumptions) – helping pave the way for a dramatic re-imagining of public transit planning and affordable community development.

Alexander Casey • Mar 08 2017

A Picture’s Worth: Mayoral Housing Plans & Population Growth

A lack of new housing supply has been blamed for a raft of housing issues plaguing many large U.S. housing markets, including rapid appreciation, deteriorating affordability (especially at the lower end of the market and for renters) and very limited inventory. In response, mayors’ offices nationwide have formulated plans focused on building new housing and rehabilitating and preserving what housing already exists.

Elizabeth Kimn • Mar 07 2017

January 2017 Market Report: The Rest Overtake the West

In January, U.S. median home value growth continued to accelerate year-over-year, the 22 month out of the past 23 in which annual growth was similar to or faster than the prior month. But while the national trend has remained roughly the same for two years, a slowdown in growth in a handful of pricey West Coast markets, particularly in California, has opened the door for more affordable markets in the South to top the list of the nation’s fastest-growing metros.

Svenja Gudell • Feb 23 2017

Q4 2016 Housing Affordability: Accelerating Home Values, Rising Rates Cause Rapid Deterioration

Rising mortgage interest rates and continued home value growth helped make mortgages less affordable by the end of 2016 than they’ve been in half a decade. And while mortgages remain “affordable” relative to historic norms, as growth in housing costs continues to outpace growth in wages, affordability should be expected to continue to rapidly deteriorate.

Svenja Gudell • Feb 16 2017

Experts: 2017 Looks to be the Year in Which Rising Mortgage Rates Finally Impact Home Value Growth

For years, falling interest rates have been a boon to the U.S. housing market, keeping monthly mortgage payments low for first-time buyers and move-up buyers alike, even as home values rose. But in 2017, rising mortgage interest rates will have the opposite effect and are set to have a larger impact than any other housing trend this year, according to the Q1 2017 Zillow Home Price Expectations survey (ZHPE).

Svenja Gudell • Feb 10 2017

Rapid Reaction: Q4 2016 GDP

U.S. real Gross Domestic Product rose 1.9 percent in Q4 2016, according to advance estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, down from 3.5 percent growth recorded in Q3.

Svenja Gudell • Jan 27 2017