Posted on 03/29/2024 5:03:43 AM PDT by george76
The cost to afford a median-priced home has increased at twice the rate that the average household income has risen as inflation and high interest rates inflame housing expenses, according to Redfin.
The median monthly home payment in February was $2,838, up 12% year-over-year, while the median household income was just $84,072, an increase of 6% over the last year, according to Redfin. Over the past decade, the income needed to afford a home has tracked closely with the median household income until around the start of 2022, when the amount of household income needed skyrocketed to its current median of $113,520 a year, as inflation, supply constraints, and high mortgage rates all raised costs.
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Housing prices have moderated slightly since their all-time high in October, when the average rate for a 30-year mortgage neared 8%, but still remain high with mortgage rates slightly under 7%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. When mortgage rates were at their recent peak in October, the median monthly house payment was $3,021, according to Redfin.
“For over a decade, America has been slowly marching toward a housing affordability crisis due to chronic underbuilding, and that crisis was kicked into overdrive when the pandemic homebuying boom fueled a meteoric rise in housing prices,” Elijah de la Campa, senior economist at Redfin, said in the report. “Now there’s another culprit squeezing homebuyers: elevated mortgage rates. We’re slowly climbing our way out of an affordability hole, but we have a long way to go. Rates have come down from their peak, and are expected to fall again by the end of the year, which should make homebuying a little more affordable and incentivize buyers to come off the sidelines.”
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Home prices alone have risen far higher than the rate of general inflation, with the Case-Shiller National Home Price Index increasing 6.0% in January year-over-year, up from 5.6% in December. Inflation has continued to remain elevated, most recently rising 3.2% in February, far higher than the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.
In an attempt to tame inflation, the Fed set its federal funds rate to a range of 5.25% and 5.50%, the highest range in 23 years, which has put upward pressure on interest rates across the economy, particularly mortgage rates.
That which can’t continue forever, won’t.
That’s wonderful in conjunction with inflation for all other goods and services…
What’s the upper threshold on the Federal Reserve’s ability to print money?
What’s the upper threshold on foreign persons/institutions purchasing US homes?
I have a solution: Let’s import 50 million illegal aliens who will need housing that way the cost of housing will rise even further!!!
This has been a public service announcement from NALL, the National Association of Leftist Logic.
many Canadians under 35 are unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4227565/posts
We went through this in the 70’s.
The only solution is nobody owns a home to make it fair. /s
The only question that really matters is “have home prices risen faster than the prices at extended care facilities?
No, you didn’t. Check your Math.
The high prices will keep foreign born, under 35, Canadiens from slipping across the border to America
I remember news reports and articles about how we will all have to lower expectations and downsize. It was the era of stagflation.
FWIW, YMMV.
“Remember news and articles” isn’t Math.
The fact there was inflation and high rates does not equate the two situations.
Compare total cost of living v wages then and now. It’s not even remotely close.
Agreed. The American Dream has been stolen.
And it’s getting worse in every aspect whether Mathematical or not.
Demographically, morally, legally, etc.
Have to admit: the media did a good job scaring the crap out of people back then, but then Reagan took office...
Here are the numbers:
https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/
In the 1970s home prices averaged four times median household income.
Today they are seven times median household income.
That is the total price to purchase.
Interest rates were higher in the 1970s so that made mortgage payments somewhat more comparable depending on the size and terms of the mortgage.
Not nearly as bad and those of us who lived through it still saw a decent future ahead of us. Relative to what’s happening now, one could say that future actually came true. Not so much this time for anyone looking 40-50 years out.
Only man with enough guts, energy and snarts to change direction of country is president Vivek. Rest are just swamp politicians and Trump is getting old.
when you raise the minimum wage... everyone that earned slightly more than minimum wage because of the difficulty of dangerousness of the job demands more, because they deserve more.
Then all those wage increases trickle down at every stage of the process and the result is inflation.
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