Multifamily

The affordability of housing in the United States is currently under extreme duress as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic recession. Since March, approximately 53 percent of all households earning $25,000 to $49,999 reported lost income, according to a recent report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University entitled “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2020.” One net effect of less discretionary income is that monthly rent is becoming a heavier burden for a large number of Americans, especially in gateway markets such as San Francisco and New York City where apartment rents have been unattainable for a large swath of the working class for years. For the lowest earning renters, affordability of rent is even more acute as a result of the pandemic. According to the Harvard report, one in five renters earning less than $25,000 annually was behind on rent payments. Dr. Ben Bernanke, a veteran economist and former chair of the Federal Reserve, said that the solution to the U.S. affordable housing situation may be overly simple: add more supply. “You learn on the first day of economics that if you increase the supply of something, the price is going to …