The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies has released its The State of the Nation’s Housing 2009 report. This annual report looks at housing markets, demographic drivers, homeownership, rental housing, and housing challenges. The report observes in its introduction that “In the worst housing construction cycle since the 1940s depressed demand is making it difficult for the market to work off excess vacant units. Restoring demand to more normal levels will take time since so many owners are in financial distress or trapped in homes worth less than their mortgages. The recession has also dampened both immigration and new household formation. But once new home sales rebound and the economy begins to pick up, the aging of the echo boomers””the largest generation to reach adulthood in the nation’s history””should reinvigorate the housing market.” Read More…