While the state of housing in the U.S. has generally improved over the last 30 years, the latest report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) of Harvard University highlights some areas of concern as well.

Since the Center’s first State of the Nation’s Housing report in 1988, significant strides have been made in the U.S. housing market, the report’s authors explained. Homebuilders added more than 40 million new residences in the last 30 years, making room for an additional 27 million households. Owning a home is still affordable, too, perhaps even more so now than in the late-80s: Based on JCHS data, Bloomberg noted that the average homeowner’s mortgage payments were lower in 2017 than in 1987, after accounting for inflation.

However, the bright spots that have developed since then have not come without serious concerns. Homeownership is less common today than it was 30 years ago, the JCHS report pointed out. So is the mere existence of an adequate supply of affordable housing in many of the nation’s population centers. The high cost of labor, land and materials have hindered homebuilding in many areas, and therefore made the right house harder to find.

The housing trends discussed in the 2018 JCHS report often varied considerably depending on location, property type, price range and many other factors. Here are a few highlights from the study distilled down on a local level.

• More than 40 percent of Miami-area households are considered “cost-burdened.” Nearly 30 percent of U.S. households in 2016 were considered “cost-burdened,” according to the JCHS, which it defined as any household paying more than 30 percent of its income toward housing costs. Miami posted the second-highest cost-burden rate of the nation’s 25 largest metros. However, only 23 percent of home-owning households nationwide met the JCHS criteria for being cost-burdened in 2016. Moreover, the total number of American households considered cost-burdened fell by 4.6 million between 2000 and 2016, a possible reflection of economic improvement. 
• Demand for rentals has slowed nationally, but remained strong in Miami and other large markets. On a national scale, fewer Americans were considered renters in 2017 compared to the prior year, reflecting a longer-term trend toward a “cooling” of the U.S. rental market, according to the JCHS report. But in cities like Miami, the rental market is still strong for owners of apartment buildings as well as single-family homes. This is particularly true at the high end of the market. Still, the JCHS noted a national downturn in renting may actually point toward growth in the homeownership rate.

Read the full report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies here.