By Nick Timiroas | The Wall Street Journal
Last decade’s housing crisis could give way to a new one in which many families lack the incomes or savings needed to buy homes, creating a surge of renters and a shortage of affordable housing.
The latest problem looks very different from the subprime mania of the early 2000s, but it shares one trait: Policy makers in Washington appear either unaware or unwilling to do much about it.
The U.S. homeownership rate is below where it stood 20 years ago when President Bill Clinton launched a national campaign to encourage Americans to buy homes. Conventional wisdom says the rate, at 63.7%, is leveling off to where it was for decades before the housing-market peak.
