WASHINGTON (August 17, 2022) — A long-term trend of housing underproduction exacerbated by rising inflation and economic uncertainty threatens home attainability for millions of people across the United States, according to the 2022 Home Attainability Index, a comprehensive new study from the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Terwilliger Center for Housing.

“Leading up to the pandemic, there were long-term, structural barriers to attainable housing that disproportionately affected low-income households,” said Michael Spotts, Index author and senior visiting research fellow at the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing. “The current uncertainty in the market – such as the long-tail impacts of COVID-19 and inflation – only exacerbate these challenges. This year’s Index examines the impact of recent trends in the context of the longer-term state of the market, with the goal of offering developers and policymakers ideas for how they can create a more equitable housing landscape in the United States.”

The 2022 Home Attainability Index provides a high-level snapshot of the extent to which various markets are providing housing choices attainable to regional workforces, with an intentional focus on racial, socioeconomic, and regional disparities and inequities.

The Index also explores the implications of shifts in housing demand and regional competitiveness due to demographic changes, pandemic-influenced employer and employee location decisions, and the high cost of building and finding homes in the largest and most economically vibrant regions.

This year’s edition includes two interactive spreadsheets, along with an online mapping platform from PolicyMap that provides enhanced visualizations of key data.

Some key findings from the Index:

• In most regions, there are few housing units of any kind affordable to low-wage workers. In the current high-inflation environment, many households face heightened economic insecurity, particularly when these factors are combined with high energy costs.
• Long-term housing underproduction is a primary driver of our nation’s housing challenge Rising inflation and the high cost of building materials are likely to further restrain the market from “catching up” to meet demand.
• While the national housing production shortage matters, shortfalls at the regional level are even more important. A lack of attainable housing in established markets is a contributing factor in some employers and households deciding to relocate to lower-cost markets.
• Even though they offer a larger supply of attainable housing, many regions that are growing are still not producing enough housing of the right type in the right locations to avoid the historic trajectory of more established, higher-cost markets.

Since the release of a pilot edition of the Index in 2021, the ULI Terwilliger Center has worked with a national cross-sector group of partners, including the National Housing Conference (NHC) and National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), to expand and improve the resource.

The summary report of the 2022 Home Attainability Index can be found on ULI’s Knowledge Finder platform. To view a webinar exploring the findings of the report, click here. Speakers at the webinar include:

• Michael Spotts, Index author and senior visiting research fellow at the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing.
• Jill Ferrari, managing partner at Renovare Development.
• Lisa Vatske, division director at the Washington State Housing Finance Commission.
• Dana Schoewe, principal at

To download the interactive spreadsheet featuring core data from the Index, click here. For all metropolitan statistical area data, click here.

The online mapping platform provided by PolicyMap can be found here.

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About the Urban Land Institute

The Urban Land Institute is a non-profit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the institute has more than 45,000 members worldwide representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines. For more information on ULI, please visit uli.org, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.