Housing affordability hit a record low 17.22% in 2022.
That is to say, median household income bought 17.22% of the median sales price of a house sold in the United States in 2022.
The 2024 figure is 19.98%, which is just a little lower than in 2013, when it was 20.12%. Affordability also is about where it was in the middle of the Bush 43 administration, the height of the previous housing bubble.
As you can plainly see, houses were much more affordable in the 1990s, and even more affordable before that. It's a picture of declining affordability overall since then.
Housing did get briefly more affordable in 2009 . . . when 5.5 million people lost their jobs and completed foreclosures were on their way to 6+ million.
Median household income in this data is updated but once a year, and for 2024 that was yesterday.
