A new data analysis by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has determined affordable homeownership is still an elusive commodity for too many Americans.
The new NAR study found households earning $75,000 a year can only afford 21.2% of home listings as of March. The good news is that the share is up slightly from 20.8% one year earlier and is the biggest gain of any income group. The bad news is that this demographic has less than half of the access to affordable homes than they had before the pandemic, when nearly 49% of listings were accessible – which is even more galling when one considers the for-sale housing inventory increased nearly 20% nationwide in March from one year earlier.
NAR estimated that the housing market needs nearly 416,000 more listings priced at or below $255,000 for this income group to have a greater access to homeownership.
Furthermore, NAR found that households earning $100,000 annually can currently afford only 37.1% of home listings, up slightly from 36.9% in March 2024 but far below the 64.7% they could afford in pre-pandemic 2019. And a household earning $50,000 annually can only afford 8.7% of home listings today, down from 9.4% one year ago.
“For many first-time home buyers, navigating the current housing market still feels like window shopping,” said Nadia Evangelou, NAR senior economist and director of real estate research. “Listing prices don’t match first-time home buyers’ budgets. If the promising trend of building smaller homes continues, that could be a meaningful step toward easing the housing affordability gap for more buyers.”
