Making money in affordable housing: it might not make you rich, but builders say it's a key ingredient of a successful, diversified business.(SpecialReport)

Professional Builder (1993), June, 2004 by Stromberg, Meghan

After World War II, low-interest home loans funded through the GI Bill and given to returning soldiers combined with an unprecedented era of prosperity to boost American homeownership rates significantly. According to the U.S. Bicentennial Census, 62.1% of Americans owned their own home by 1960, compared with just 43.6% in 1940. Since then, homeownership rates have grown steadily to a rate of 66.2% in 2000. (Other Census Bureau studies, including the smaller Housing Vacancy Survey, put homeownership rates even higher--68.3% in 2003.)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Despite that gradual uptick, significant numbers of would-be homebuyers remain locked out of the American Dream. For most, the gap between the cost of housing and their annual incomes makes...