State of the Nation’s Housing 2011, the annual report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, describes “an unusually large number of households leaving homeownership and an unusually small number of renter households buying homes.” While the report points to bright spots in the rental housing market, affordability challenges remain.

A new book, Land Banks and Land Banking, by Frank Alexander, co-founder and general counsel of the Center for Community Progress, provides public officials and community leaders a step-by-step guide for taking control of problem properties and then leveraging them to spur smart development and meet community needs. Electronic copies of the book are available at www.nhi.org/go/CCP.

Homeownership and Individual Development Accounts, a paper by Reid Cramer, director of the Asset Building Program at the New America Foundation, reports on the 10-year effects of a Tulsa, Okla., IDA program, and raises questions about “the state of homeownership as a means of achieving economic security.”

The National Housing Conference and its research affiliate, the Center for Housing Policy, have compiled a fact sheet that summarizes the most recent research available on the role that housing counseling plays in reducing mortgage delinquency and foreclosure.

The Assets Report 2011, from the Asset Building Program at the New America Foundation, is an annual analysis of the federal budget designed to give “a more complete understanding of how the federal government encourages the accumulation of assets for families up and down the economic ladder.”

Charlotte Housing Authority’s Moving Forward Program, an evaluation conducted by the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at University of North CarolinaÐChapel Hill for the Charlotte Housing Authority, describes the early challenges in implementation of the Moving to Work program in Charlotte, N.C.

Navigating Uncertain Waters: Mortgage Lending in the Wake of the Great Recession is a summary of a February 2011 event at the NYU Furman Center’s Institute for Affordable Housing Policy that examined credit availability and lending patterns during the recession.

Public Transit’s Impact on Housing Costs: A Review of the Literature, from the Center for Housing Policy, summarizes the extensive body of research on whether and how public transit influences the cost of nearby housing.