When it comes to new construction, students are finding themselves in a dilemma similar to renters twice their age. A shortage of affordable and middle-market properties has students and seniors struggling to pay for shelter. Senior Care In senior housing, Boomers face limited affordable and middle-income options for their aging loved ones or themselves. New construction caters largely to high-end buyers. Location is a major factor: seniors’ most desired areas include sites with easy access to public transportation, activities, and proximity to family. These centralized locations come with high land costs. In the end, those costs and the costs of fluctuating building materials roll over to the seniors and their caretakers. Vorice Ratchford served as her mother’s caregiver for nearly a decade. She often checked for housing near her home in a southeastern suburb of Atlanta, but could never find accommodations within her price range. “Even when she was healthier, we couldn’t find housing that we could afford,” recalls Ratchford. “As her health declined—she had dementia—it became even harder.” The Alzheimer’s Association reports that housing costs range from $43,200 per year for basic services to $91,250 per year for a private room in a nursing home. In a single-earner household, taking on additional debt to pay for senior housing wasn’t an option. According to the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances, the average American household has $15,054.54 in credit card debt, excluding mortgages and auto loans. Ratchford, like many Americans, has been struggling toward debt freedom. Ratchford became a full-time caregiver for her mother, putting three adults on the support of a single income. “I can’t imagine how someone with a full-time job could be a caregiver for someone with dementia,” Ratchford says. “Even with my previous job, every cent of my income would need...

Relocating can be tough for tenants, particularly when they are moving to a new city or state. To ease the transition, The Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have created the Location Affordability Portal (LAP), a website equipped with tools that give a realistic idea of the costs associated with relocating to a different area. The portal also includes a variety of features that are useful to real estate and development professionals. The joint venture of HUD and the DOT came as a result of interesting findings: the average family spends nearly 50 percent on its income on housing and transportation. While housing costs are traditionally easy to calculate, transportation costs are not. By compiling user-entered information along with each department’s collected data, an easy-to-use portal has taken shape. Users now have access to a vast amount of national data. Users can simply type in the address of a residence and receive the calculation for housing and transportation costs. Families can determine whether it’s better to live and work in the city, live in the suburbs and commute to the city, or any other variation of housing and transportation options. Such a resource would have been incredibly helpful for Jeff Ratchford of Conyers, GA. He knew that he didn’t want to live in the city. He opted to live in a suburban community and commute to his workplace. By using public transportation, he received the best combination of what he wanted: a spacious home for his family at a great price, an acre lot, good schools, a peaceful neighborhood and an inexpensive commute. “We found the home and lot that we wanted and we were right where we wanted to be,” he recalls. For the first few years, Ratchford...