Although rent growth has cooled in recent years, housing affordability has worsened due to decades of rising rents and stagnant incomes, per the America’s Rental Housing 2026 study, released by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University every two years.
“Despite the slow pace of rent growth in the near term, unaffordability will remain a major challenge for renter households,” the researchers wrote. “At the same time, the rising cost of other necessary goods will put additional pressure on renters’ household budgets if tariffs remain in place and inflation persists.”
After record-high increases during the pandemic, national rent growth has hovered near zero since mid-2023, according to the report. Despite the widespread slowdown in apartment completions in recent years, decelerating demand and rising vacancies have limited rent prices.
At the same time, the number of cost-burdened renter households has reached a new all-time high. Researchers found that 22.7 million renter households in 2024 were cost-burdened — that is, spending more than 30% of income on rent and utilities — compared to 20.4 million in 2019 and 14.8 million in 2001.
The number of severely burdened households, who spent more than half of their income on rent and utilities, stayed at 12.1 million, up 1.5 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and 4.6 million since 2001.
Since 2001, the amount of money available to lower-income renters each month after paying for housing and utilities fell by 60% to a record low of $210, as the cost of food and healthcare continues to rise. Cuts to SNAP and Medicaid in the 2025 reconciliation bill will further tighten household budgets, according to the researchers.
Cost burdens are also moving up the income scale, the report shows. Among those making $30,000 to $44,999, 72% were burdened in 2024, a 3.8 percentage point rise since 2019. Affordability challenges for renters earning $45,000 to $74,999 have grown even faster. Nearly half were burdened in 2024, up 24.3 percentage points since 2001 and 9.5 points since the start of the pandemic.
Demographic shifts
The high cost of homeownership has supported strong renter household growth in recent years, but the demographics that underpin rental demand are becoming less favorable as the population ages and the government rapidly curtails immigration. Demand wavered in the second half of 2025 amid faltering job growth, declining consumer sentiment and severely restricted immigration.
Indeed, the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policy is lowering demand for apartments, while economic uncertainty is leading many residents to stay in rentals and delay buying a home, according to separate research from John Burns Research and Consulting, an Irvine, California-based firm that conducts market research on the housing industry.
Overall, many renters have limited financial means, underscoring the importance of the social safety net, according to the Harvard researchers. Renters with lower incomes also tend to have less education and higher rates of disability, both of which can limit job options and, thus, a renter’s earning potential.
Rental housing stock
The supply of low-rent units has declined over the last decade, reducing the housing options that are affordable to lower-income households. After accounting for inflation, the number of units renting for less than $600 declined by 2.5 million, or 30%, to 5.8 million units between 2014 and 2024.
Overall, the nation’s stock of rental housing has been shifting toward larger buildings. The construction of multifamily buildings with 20 or more units accounted for 75% of the net apartment growth from 2010 to 2024.
In the years following the foreclosure crisis, the stock of single-family rentals increased until its peak in 2016, when numbers began to trend down as homes were demolished, condemned or converted to owner occupancy. Congress is currently mulling legislation with a provision that would effectively eliminate the production of build-to-rent single-family housing, and multifamily groups say it would ultimately increase rent and home prices.
The rental stock is also the oldest on record and requires significant investment. The median age of rental homes hit 45 years in 2023, increasing the need for maintenance and repairs.
Climate change is further threatening rental housing, as a large share of apartments are located in areas with significant hazard exposure. Because the rental stock is older than ever, far greater investment is needed to preserve existing units, improve housing conditions and increase climate resiliency.
Rental policy challenges
Overall, the country’s rental housing challenges are increasingly severe, and unaffordability remains the primary rental policy challenge. Federal rental assistance has not kept pace with growing demand, and the number of people experiencing homelessness has hit record highs, the researchers said.
At the same time, President Donald Trump is seeking to slash federal support. He originally proposed a 44% cut to HUD in his FY 2026 plan, but dialed it back to a 13% reduction, Bloomberg reported. HUD is also tightening rules for tenants, most recently by moving to allow more rapid evictions, work requirements up to 40 hours per week and term limits for residents in agency-supported housing.
State and local efforts will continue to provide valuable lessons, but they simply cannot fill all gaps left by the federal withdrawal, according to the report.
“Absent coordinated actions across all levels of government and multiple sectors, the overlapping problems of unaffordability, housing instability, limited supply, disaster risk, and energy inefficiency will worsen,” the researchers wrote. “While the federal government has never provided sufficient resources to meet the needs of low-income renter households, retrenchment from its vital role will only exacerbate these issues.”
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