The decline in affordable homeownership opportunities impacted all racial and ethnic demographics in California’s housing market during 2022, according to new data released by the California Association of Realtors (CAR).
Last year, only 21% of all Californians earned the minimum income needed to purchase a home in 2022, down from 27% in 2021. CAR reported that housing affordability for White/non-Hispanic households dropped to 26% in 2022 from 32% in 2021, while only 12% of Black and Hispanic households could afford the same median-priced home last year down from 16% and 17% in 2021, respectively. For the state’s Asian population, only 31% could afford the median-priced home in 2022, down from 38% in 2021.
CAR pointed out the housing affordability gap between Blacks and the overall population in California improved from 11.7 percentage points in 2021 to 9.8 percentage points in 2022, and the gap for Hispanics/Latinos improved from 10.5 percentage points in 2021 to 9.4 percentage points in 2022. CAR also cited the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey in observing the 2021 homeownership rate for all Californians was 55%, 63% for Whites, 60% for Asians, 44% for Hispanics and 37% for Blacks.
CAR added that a minimum annual income of $186,800 was needed to qualify for the purchase of a $822,320 statewide median-priced, existing single-family home in 2022. The monthly payment, including taxes and insurance on a 30-year, fixed-rate loan, would be $4,670, assuming a 20% down payment and an effective composite interest rate of 5.47%. The 2022 California median income for Whites was $105,640, $120,040 for Asians, $76,310 for Hispanics/Latinos and $64,190 for Blacks — an income gap of nearly one-third that of the overall population, which was $93,380.
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This is why I, and many more businessmen like me, moved my company from California to Texas ten years ago, and it is getting worse.
Yeah, let’s superimpose that to the rest of the country where the average / median income for a household is around 50k. No normal person can afford those prices regardless of race. But good job baiting a media division non issue. ????
California has about 39 million people, about 4x what is had in the early 1950’s when the state was very affordable for nearly everyone. Even poor people could afford to live in seaside locations like Malibu, La Jolla, Del Mar, and San Francisco.
Because the population of California (and the world) was so much lower many decades ago, lots of things were affordable, including food. Wild caught salmon and abalone were considered poor man’s food and were easily available near the coastal areas. As populations rise, costs go up. There is less land per person and less desirable land available for all the people who wish to live in the nicer areas (often meaning near the coast).
As other states have gained population in recent decades, their costs have soared far higher too. Talk to anyone who has moved to Georgia, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Arizona, etc., and they will tell you that rising populations in those states are making homes far more expensive, and crowded conditions are impacting those states too.
The obvious factor driving the high cost of living is too many people. The world has 8 Billion humans now (and still rising higher), and that is 16x more humans than in the mid 1500’s. Natural resources, once cheap to obtain, are dwindling rapidly, and global trade ensures that resources will be impacted everywhere. Many types of food that were once abundant and cheap to buy are simply not available or are insanely expensive (like wild salmon in California as that industry will be shut down this year due to shortages of salmon).
Human Over-Population is the factor that drives most problems and absolutely drives up costs of living. If we don’t like the results of too many humans, then we should adopt fair policies to encourage low birth rates, instead, we do the opposite. It’s stupid, but we are indoctrinated to not question the contradictions that are right in front of us.
I know various people who have had 3, 4, 6, or even 10 children, and, ironically, they complain about over-crowding and the high cost of living. If you have more than 2 kids per couple, then you have added to the over-population problem.
That’s just a math, which has an irritating habit of revealing the facts.
I don’t know anyone in California who wishes that we had more people and more crowding. Other states are now also feeling the discomfort and high costs of too many people.