The Blubber

The monthly cost of a new mortgage is now 42% of U.S. median household income, 10% higher than on the eve of the 2008 housing crash, per UBS.

Housing affordability is the worst on record, per the National Association of Realtors.

It would take some combination of up to a 28% decline in home prices, a more than 4% reduction in 30-year mortgage rates, or up to a 60% growth in median household incomes to bring home affordability back to its 25-year average, per Black Knight.

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