In nearly half of metro areas, buyers must make more than $100,000 to afford a median-priced home, a Harvard University report finds. And home prices this year reached a new all-time high.

Millions of Americans are already shut out of buying a home, and the cost of buying one continues to rise.

In past decades, it was common to find a house that cost roughly three times a buyer’s annual income. But that ratio has skewed sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic, with home prices up a whopping 47% since early 2020. Median home sales prices last year were about five times the median household income, according to tabulations in a newly released report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, and there are signs it could get worse.

The double whammy of high prices and high mortgage rates has “left homeownership out of reach to all but the most advantaged households,” says Daniel McCue, a senior research associate at the center.

  • @Agrivar
    5•6 months ago

    FWIW, it’s “per se” not “persey” - it’s Latin for “by itself”

    • BubbleMonkey
      3•6 months ago

      Thanks. I knew it was wrong; autocorrect underlined it. But I didn’t care enough to look it up since it didn’t suggest the right thing.

      Idk who downvoted you for that, but they suck.