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WASHINGTON (April 18, 2018) – At the national level, housing affordability is down from a year ago and fewer households can afford the active inventory of homes currently for sale on the market based on their income. That is according to joint research from the National Association of Realtors® and realtor.com®, a leading online real estate destination.
Using data on mortgages1, state and metro area-level income2 and listings on realtor.com®, the Realtors® Affordability Distribution Curve and Score3 is designed to examine affordability conditions at different income levels for all active inventory on the market. A score of one or higher generally suggests a market where homes for sale are more affordable to households in proportion to their income distribution.
State affordability
According to March data, the states with the lowest Affordability Score4 were Hawaii (0.52), California (0.57), Oregon (0.60), and the District of Columbia, Montana and Rhode Island (all at 0.64). In these areas, households at the median income level can afford only 19 to 23 percent of the active housing inventory. The states with the highest Affordability Score were Ohio (1.12), Indiana (1.09), Kansas (1.09), Iowa (1.07), and West Virginia (1.05). In these areas, a typical household can afford 54 to 62 percent of the active housing inventory currently on the market.
Metro affordability
By looking at the data by metropolitan statistical area (MSA), more metro areas experienced weakening (45) affordability conditions compared to improving conditions (35) from a year ago. The markets with the lowest affordability scores include Los Angeles-Long Beach, California (0.35), San Diego-Carlsbad, California (0.37), San Jose-Sunnyvale, California (0.43), Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, California (0.45) and San Francisco-Oakland, California (0.48), where a typical household can only afford 3 to 11 percent of the active housing inventory.
The Youngstown-Warren, Ohio-Pennsylvania market had the highest Affordability Score at 1.25, followed by Dayton, Ohio (1.19), Toledo, Ohio (1.18), Akron, Ohio (1.16), and Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (1.11). In these areas, the typical household can afford nearly 75 percent of the homes that are currently on the market.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist found a notable imbalance between what potential home buyers can afford and what is listed for sale. “The survey confirms that the lack of entry-level supply is putting affordability pressures on too many buyers – especially those at the lower end of the market, where demand is the strongest. This is why first-time buyers continue to struggle finding affordable properties to buy and are making up less than a third of home sales so far this year,” said Yun.
The Affordability Score decreased nationally from 0.86 to 0.84 between March 2017 and March 2018, because of rising prices across the country and a spike in mortgage rates. However, 14 states had better affordability compared to a year earlier, with the greatest increase in affordability in the District of Columbia (from 0.59 to 0.64), Vermont (from 0.81 to 0.84) Hawaii (from 0.50 to 0.52) and North Dakota (from 0.95 to 0.97). Thirty-five metro areas had better affordability compared to a year earlier, led by Austin-Round Rock, Texas (from 0.55 to 0.66), Syracuse, New York (1.04 to 1.1), North Port-Sarasota, Florida (0.60 to 0.66) and Palm Bay-Melbourne, Florida (0.71 to 0.77).
“We’ve seen affordability improve as inventory declines have begun to lessen these areas. More balanced supply and demand dynamics have kept listing price growth below the national average, providing some much needed relief for stretched home buyers in these areas,” according to Danielle Hale, chief economist for realtor.com®.
“Wages are growing, which is welcome news for prospective buyers, but prices are increasing at a faster rate, up almost 6 percent in the first two months of 2018. Solutions to improve these conditions include more homeowners selling, investors releasing their portfolio of single-family homes back onto the market and more single-family housing construction,” Yun said.
The Realtors® Affordability Distribution Curve and Score was created to be a valuable resource for Realtors® and consumers to assess the affordability of markets in different income groups.
The National Association of Realtors®, "The Voice for Real Estate," is America's largest trade association, representing 1.3 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.
Realtor.com® is the trusted resource for home buyers, sellers and dreamers, offering the most comprehensive source of for-sale properties, among competing national sites, and the information, tools and professional expertise to help people move confidently through every step of their home journey. It pioneered the world of digital real estate 20 years ago, and today helps make all things home simple, efficient and enjoyable. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. under a perpetual license from the National Association of REALTORS®. For more information, visit realtor.com®.
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1Down payment percentages are determined from recently locked mortgages from Optimal Blue to determine the maximum affordable home price. The maximum affordable home price assumes that 30 percent of a purchaser's income can go to pay for the financing, property tax, homeowner's insurance costs, and a mortgage insurance premium if the down payment is less than 20 percent. Assumptions are made that homes are financed with a 30-year fixed-rate fully-amortizing mortgage at the prevailing mortgage rate. Mortgage rates are those advertised on realtor.com® during the period analyzed.
2Income distribution data is collected from Nielsen. Nielsen data is provided as numbers of households within income brackets, which are then calculated to find the percentile within, above, or below any bracket. See detailed methodology here: http://www.tetrad.com/pub/documents/popfactsmeth.
3The Affordability Distribution Curve gathers income data for households in our desired market and constructs a maximum affordable house price for the income level using a down payment percentage determined from recently originated mortgages from Optimal Blue. Once a maximum affordable house price for a given income percentile is determined, active listings on realtor.com® are reviewed to see what percent of homes on the market are priced less than that maximum affordable house price.
4The Affordability Score is two times the area under the Affordability Distribution Curve. The score varies between zero and two. A score of zero will result when no household can afford any of the homes that are currently on the market. A score of two will result when all households can afford all of the homes that are currently on the market. A score of one generally suggests a market close to equality, in other words, homes on the market are affordable to households in proportion to their income distribution.