Some buyers with low credit scores and high debt-to-income ratios are getting 30-year average mortgage quotes in the 8% range, per Bloomberg.
Additionally, a recent surge in US mortgage rates has pushed affordability to the lowest level in nearly four decades, per Bloomberg.
The housing market is stuck, per BI: Americans can't afford homes, investors aren't buying property, and economists see little relief ahead.
The average American buyer faces one of the most unaffordable housing markets, where first-time buyers would need to earn as much as $90,000 in 2022. Now, housing prices sit at an almost four-decade-high unaffordable level.
In 2019, first-time buyers needed to earn about $70,000, but in 2022, just three years later, the needed earnings increased by $20,000. Zillow Group Inc.'s senior economist Nicole Bachaud gave a statement regarding how homebuyers with less income struggle in the market.
Bachaud: “The scales are shifted toward homebuyers with higher incomes and a better financial background. This will be the norm until we get more inventory in the market.”
The National Association of Realtors notes that first-time buyers made up the smallest fraction of sales in 2022 at just 26%. Recent Freddie Mac data also revealed that the 30-year fixed mortgage reached 6.65%, climbing for the fourth week in a row.
A New York broker, Kimberly Jay, who works with Compass, gave another statement sharing how parents were giving properties and how the city was full of wealthy people. A third of first-time homeowners relied on families or friends for gifts and loans pre-pandemic.
Jay: “I see some parents giving gifts for the full price of a million-dollar property... This is a city with wealthy people.”
Read more: https://unusualwhales.com/news/housing-now-at-almost-four-decade-high-unaffordable-levels
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