Renter wealth and stability
Measuring the financial position of renter households at the geographic scale where housing policy is written, scored, and funded. Anchored by the Renter Wealth Index.
LSI research examines how federal and state housing policy, rental markets, and ownership pathways shape wealth-building and economic outcomes for Americans, and identifies the levers most likely to realign market incentives with the communities where those Americans live and work.
Our View
For most of the twentieth century, the American housing market functioned as the primary mechanism for middle-class wealth formation. Homeownership produced a durable asset. Rising values compounded across generations. Renting served as a stage on the way to ownership rather than a permanent destination. In large segments of the country today, that mechanism no longer works as it once did.
The United States faces a shortage of roughly 4 million housing units, and families bear the brunt of that scarcity.1 As of March 2025, families earning up to $50,000 a year could afford just 8.7% of home listings nationally, compared with the 48% they could reach if supply met demand.2 Even households earning between $75,000 and $100,000 can access only a fifth of listings, less than half of what was available six years ago.3 The price-to-income ratio for homebuyers has risen from 3.39 in 2015 to nearly 4.5 today.4
Rental markets, long framed as a stepping stone toward ownership, no longer function that way. Nearly half of all renter households, 22.6 million Americans, are cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of income on housing and utilities.5 In the past five years, apartment rents rose 28.7% and single-family home rents rose 42.9%, while median household income grew just 22.5%.6 After paying for housing, 65% of working-age renters lack sufficient income to cover necessities.7 For the roughly two-thirds of renters who believe they will never own a home, the traditional wealth-building pathway remains closed.8
LSI's research program starts from the premise that markets, when their incentives are aligned with the public interest, can serve as platforms for economic mobility. When those incentives misfire, as they have across the United States for generations, households lose access to ownership, asset-building, and the resilience that comes with them. LSI uses two instruments to realign them. Federal and state policy research identifies the levers most likely to work. Accessible data tools, led by the Renter Wealth Index, make communities legible to the capital, credit, and legislation that shape them. LSI translates the findings into options that lawmakers of either party, community organizations, investors, and other mission-driven actors can act on.
Measuring the financial position of renter households at the geographic scale where housing policy is written, scored, and funded. Anchored by the Renter Wealth Index.
Examining the federal and state rental supply pipeline, including LIHTC allocations, HUD 232 and USDA 515 originations, and the reforms that could expand housing that families can afford in the communities where they already live.
The policy and product architecture that supports the transition from renting to owning, including down-payment assistance, manufactured housing, credit-building, and shared-equity models designed for renters' incomes and geographies.
Examining how federal credit programs, public-private finance structures, and capital markets instruments can channel private capital into housing supply, ownership, and community lending in communities.
Flagship Report
A federal housing affordability investment facility could rewrite private incentives to shift the cost curve for affordable housing by deploying patient, low-cost capital fully backed by the federal government. This white paper outlines how catalytic federal financing could enable the full spectrum of housing providers to preserve at-risk affordable housing and create new homes nationwide.
White Paper
A federal housing affordability investment facility could rewrite private incentives to shift the cost curve for affordable housing by deploying patient, low-cost capital fully backed by the federal government.
ReadAcross Pillars
LSI housing research is designed to advance real-world outcomes today, leveraging national coalitions and data-driven tools to carry meaningful findings into practice.
A composite index that quantifies the economic position of renter households across states, congressional districts, counties, and zip codes.
A cross-sector coalition of investors, developers, researchers, community organizations, and state and federal policymakers developing the legal, policy, and investment framework for renter wealth-building in the United States.
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