Housing recovery still faces many challenges

The latest annual report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies sees a market whose future growth is driven by young and immigrant buyers.

The bad news has been the worst economic recession since the 1930s. The good news is the housing market has been showing some signs of leading the nation out of that recession.

The uncertainty, though, lies in predicting the timing, speed and depth of a housing recovery that hinges on the reversal of so many variables—including rising unemployment, sinking home values, and tightening mortgage credit—and their impact on immigration trends and demand among younger home buyers.

That, in essence, is the theme of “The State of the Nation’s Housing: 2009,” the annual report on where the housing market was, is, and might be, which its publisher, the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, officially releases today. (A downloadable version of this 44-page report is available at www.jchs.harvard.edu.)