Evidence Matters: Summer 2016 and 2nd Quarter National Housing Market Conditions

October 4, 2016  

Evidence Matters: Summer 2016 Issue

The Summer 2016 issue of Evidence Matters: Transforming Knowledge Into Housing and Community Development Policy, which focuses on crime, public safety, and social inclusion, is now available. This issue discusses strategies to create stronger communities, reduce crime, and improve quality of life. Additionally, this issue of Evidence Matters considers the link between environmental and social factors that influence crime, and describes the work of three organizations working to reduce recidivism and connect opportunity youth and ex-offenders to community resources through supportive housing.

Key Findings:

• Research shows that the built environment and social factors influence crime. Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) considers ways to reduce crime through lighting and surveillance, as well as social spaces for cultural events to improve sense of community.

• Reducing disconnection among opportunity youth involves improving access to high-opportunity neighborhoods through placed-based strategies and mobility programs, as well as supporting youth in post-secondary educational pursuits. Funding extracurricular activities enables youth to create "identity projects" and cultivate a passion that keeps them engaged.

• Violent crime is geographically concentrated in particular neighborhoods and in more localized areas known as hot spots; evidence suggests that social trust between neighbors, willingness for collective intervention, and problem-oriented policing can help communities prevent crime hot spots from emerging.

• Returning Home–Ohio (RHO) and the Burlington Housing Authority's Offender Re-Entry Housing Program offer medical and mental health care, scattered-site housing, and "ready to rent" courses to give ex-offenders a fresh start. The Aspen Forum for Community Solutions' Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund invests in organizations that support education and job paths for opportunity youth.

National Housing Market Conditions, 2nd Quarter 2016

HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research has released its analysis of the national housing market with second quarter statistics for 2016. The report contains a new section on rental home affordability.

The analysis indicates that during the second quarter of 2016, the housing market continued to improve:

• Construction starts on single-family homes were down 4 percent from the first quarter but up 7 percent from one year before. Multifamily housing starts rose 11 percent from the first quarter but were down 11 percent from one year ago.

• Purchases of new single-family homes were up 9 percent from the first quarter and up 17 percent from one year earlier. Purchases of existing homes were up 4 percent from both the first quarter and one year earlier.

• The NAR Composite Housing Affordability index, at 158.8 in the second quarter, remains above its historic norm of 129.

• Indicative of declining rental affordability, the median monthly price of renting a home in real dollars rose 18 percent between the first quarter of 2001 and the second quarter of 2016.

• In the first quarter of 2016, 8.0 percent of residential properties with a mortgage were under water, down from 8.5 percent in the fourth quarter 2015. Since the beginning of 2012, the number of underwater borrowers has fallen 67 percent, from 12.1 to 4.0 million.

• The U.S. Homeownership rate fell to 62.9 percent in the second quarter, its lowest rate in more than 50 years.

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