10/31/2021
Buyers in today's market are all too familiar with the challenges being felt by limited inventory, high demand and rapid home-price appreciation.
But the actual affordability of the U.S. housing market for the average homebuyer, as measured by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, is worsening. In data, the Federal Reserve of Atlanta found the median existing-home price, as a three-month rolling average, was $343,472 nationally, a record high. Median-income households are spending 32.4% of their annual income on a median-priced home, the highest it's been since November 2008.
The Federal Reserve Bank and others define affordability as not spending more than 30% of a household income on housing-related expenses, including rent, mortgage, taxes, utility payments and so on.