Yuliya Panfil
Senior Fellow and Director, Future of Land and Housing
In the News: The Affordable Housing Hiding in Plain Sight
In an essay for Bloomberg, FLH Director Yuliya Panfil outlines the repair and mortgage financing barriers that keep affordable homes out of reach for millions of American families.
Ask most people how to fix the housing affordability crisis and they’ll tell you: Build more homes. They’re right, but they’re missing half the story.
Millions of affordable homes already exist — 22 million, to be exact. They are in Philadelphia and Memphis, in St. Louis and El Paso, in small cities and mid-sized towns across the country. Many are concentrated in Midwestern legacy cities which are projected to see  as scorching heat and soaring costs .
And yet most families don’t get the chance to buy these affordable homes, not because of low demand but because the financing system to purchase them has quietly broken down.
Don't have a Bloomberg subscription? Here are the key takeaways:
- A quarter of all US owner-occupied homes — that’s 22 million homes — are valued at under $200,000.
- Yet the financing system to purchase these homes has broken down, with the market for small-dollar mortgage loans collapsing since the 2008 financial crisis.
- The vast majority of families — and 97% of first-time homebuyers — depend on a mortgage to buy a home, so without mortgage lending these homes sit on the market or are purchased in cash by investors.
- Many small-dollar homes are older and in need of repair. Yet families often cannot afford these repairs and financial assistance programs for repairs are underfunded and scant. Without these crucial repairs, homes are not mortgage eligible and cannot be transacted.
- Unlocking access to mortgage and repair financing for existing affordable homes is a high leverage and overlooked housing supply solution.
- Cities and states are starting to innovate with programs such as combined purchase-and-rehabilitation loans and forgivable repair loans to help buyers access these affordable homes.
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