It all goes back to the pandemic, when the remote-work revolution collided with historically low mortgage rates—it fueled a housing boom, and home prices have soared almost 50% since.
“Americans needed to earn $40,465 annually to afford the typical U.S. starter home in February 2020, when the median sale price was $169,000 and the average mortgage rate was about 3.5%.”
“The pandemic housing market boom changed the definition of a starter home,” a Redfin senior economist, Elijah de la Campa, said.
Ali Wolf, housing market research firm Zonda’s chief economist, told Fortune that the share of new home projects under $300,000 was declining all across the country.
“We’re creating, inadvertently, a renter society not because of choice but because of force,” Wolf said at the time—adding that it would fuel a “larger imbalance between the haves and have-nots in the economy.” We know right now renting is considered cheaper than buying and will be for years, by some estimates.
However, starter homes are technically more affordable than they were last fall, but that’s simply because mortgage rates aren’t at 8% anymore, so monthly payments are slightly lower.
The original article contains 682 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
It all goes back to the pandemic, when the remote-work revolution collided with historically low mortgage rates—it fueled a housing boom, and home prices have soared almost 50% since.
“Americans needed to earn $40,465 annually to afford the typical U.S. starter home in February 2020, when the median sale price was $169,000 and the average mortgage rate was about 3.5%.”
“The pandemic housing market boom changed the definition of a starter home,” a Redfin senior economist, Elijah de la Campa, said.
Ali Wolf, housing market research firm Zonda’s chief economist, told Fortune that the share of new home projects under $300,000 was declining all across the country.
“We’re creating, inadvertently, a renter society not because of choice but because of force,” Wolf said at the time—adding that it would fuel a “larger imbalance between the haves and have-nots in the economy.” We know right now renting is considered cheaper than buying and will be for years, by some estimates.
However, starter homes are technically more affordable than they were last fall, but that’s simply because mortgage rates aren’t at 8% anymore, so monthly payments are slightly lower.
The original article contains 682 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!