The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) recently released an update to the 2020 Maryland Housing Needs Assessment (HNA).
In 2024, the National Center for Smart Growth (NCSG) at the University of Maryland, College Park partnered with the DHCD to conduct the update. It was designed to focus on three primary issue areas of key importance to DHCD: (1) housing affordability gaps for various populations, (2) the connections between housing costs, land use, and regulation, and (3) housing needs for seniors. For each of these three key issues, NCSG provided more comprehensive or updated data to the 2020 HNA or added entirely new analysis that was not covered in the 2020 report.
Here a few key takeaways:
- Maryland needs about 590,000 new housing units by 2045 to meet projected demand.
- The cost burden for renters has increased from 33% since 2000 to 46% since 2022.
- Homeownership is increasingly out of reach for moderate-income households. In the year 2000, close to 75% of households in Maryland could afford the median-valued home. By 2022, that share had dropped to only 49%.
- For every 1,000 renters earning 0–30% of Area Median Income (AMI), 610 affordable homes are missing.
- The lower shore has an average of 20% - 55%+ of its renters falling in the cost burdened category.
The HNA summarized that the following needed to occur:
- Housing production must increase, in tandem with an upzoning of land in localities where housing is most desirable. Given projected shortages of land zoned for denser housing types, especially at moderate and high densities, housing will likely continue to become more expensive.
- Production of protected affordable homes, especially for the most vulnerable (older adults and extremely low-income renters), must increase, coupled with preservation of existing affordable housing. With prices likely to continue to increase in the short term, the state’s most vulnerable will continue to be at risk of housing instability, highlighting the importance of no net loss of the existing supply.
- The state must continue to double down on progress toward providing supportive housing to those experiencing homelessness, given that this population faces more challenges than ever in obtaining stable, affordable housing.
Lauren Bunting is a Broker with Keller Williams Realty of Delmarva in Ocean City, Maryland.
