Average Americans cannot afford to buy a home in a growing number of communities across the United States, according to a report released Thursday by real estate data provider ATTOM.
The report, CBS News noted, details how researchers analyzed 575 United States counties last year and found that 99 percent of those areas have home prices that are out of reach for “the average income earner” making $71,214 a year.
Housing experts blamed a few trends for driving up housing costs.
“Mortgage rates have topped 7%, adding hundreds of dollars per month to a potential house payment,” CBS News reported. “At the same time, homeowners who locked in at lower mortgage rates during the pandemic have opted not to sell out of fear of having to buy another property at today’s elevated rates, depleting the supply of homes for sale.”
Daryl Fairweather, chief economist of Redfin, told CBS MoneyWatch that the only people who are selling right now are “people who really need to move because of a life event — divorce, marriage, new baby, new job, etc.”
“That lack of new inventory is keeping prices high,” Fairweather said.
The National Association of Realtors reported in August that the national median existing-home price was $407,100, up 3.9 percent from last year. Freddie Mac reported that the average interest rate of a 30-year home loan was 7.19 percent, up from 6.48 percent at the beginning of this year.
“The dynamics influencing the U.S. housing market appear to continuously work against everyday Americans, potentially to the point where they could start to have a significant impact on home prices,” ATTOM CEO Rob Barber said in a statement Thursday. “We will see how this shakes out as the peak 2023 buying season winds down.”
Housing experts told the outlet the findings add to a growing body of research showing a lack of affordable housing, especially for younger millennials looking to become home owners.
Dan Hnatkovskyy, co-founder of new home construction startup NewHomesMate, said that many first-time home buyers have “had to postpone their home-buying dreams,” while older buyers with more cash on hand can buy down interest rates or absorb a higher monthly payment as they buy homes across the U.S.
ATTOM defined “unaffordable” as the cost for someone who has to pay more than 28 percent of their income toward a particular home. ATTOM assessed that between a mortgage payment, homeowners’ insurance, and property taxes, home costs would require 35 percent of someone’s annual wages or more.
The cities with the least affordable homes include Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix, San Diego, and Orange County, California, ATTOM said. Areas around Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh “have the most affordable homes compared with median salaries for residents there,” according to the report.
