The housing market, both home purchases and rentals, has been strong for property owners and managers. But those who need housing are in two groups: the haves and have-nots, according to experts, and there isn't enough housing for the latter. That means some difficult questions for the industry, and the country.

"The pandemic has left millions of households deeper in financial distress," says the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University in its report, The State of The Nation's Housing 2021. Even with government assistance, many lower-income people have fallen behind on housing payments and there are still longstanding housing affordability issues that have only been exacerbated by economic turmoil as well as natural disasters that damaged homes and displaced people.

The current state builds on what had come before. "Was there an affordable housing crisis in 2019?" Martha Peyton, managing director of real assets applied research at Aegon Asset Management, tells GlobeSt.com. "Yes, absolutely there was. Usually, if a median household needs to spend upwards of 30% of their income on rent, they are under rental pressures. That ratio has been indicating rental pressures in a lot of metro areas in the country. We also look at the ratio of income to median home prices. That also varies by metro area and that also shows buying a single-family home is out of reach for many, many households across the country."