06/12/2024

'An Impossible Market'

The homebuying affordability gap is widening across the U.S.

Across the country, the prospect of home ownership is slipping out of reach for the ordinary buyer.

The affordability gap — an estimate of the difference between an area’s median household income and how much income is necessary to afford payments on a median-priced home in that area — is near a 10-year high in the U.S., according to an NBC News analysis of housing data. The analysis and the latest numbers from the NBC News Home Buyer Index show what experts say is a housing market inaccessible to a growing number of people.

“It’s pretty much an impossible market, even for middle-income households,” said Alexander Hermann, a senior research associate at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. 

Please select this link to read the complete article from NBC News.