{"id":602277,"date":"2026-02-20T01:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/602277\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T01:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:12:13","slug":"amount-buyers-need-to-afford-typical-home-falls-for-2nd-month-in-a-row-after-5-years-of-increases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/602277\/","title":{"rendered":"Amount buyers need to afford typical home falls for 2nd month in a row after 5 years of increases\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Redfin.<\/p>\n

After five years of worsening, housing affordability<\/a> has\u00a0finally started to improve, according to a new Redfin study<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The amount Americans needed to earn declined 4% year over year in December, from $115,870 to $111,252, marking the second month in a row of declines after\u00a0rising\u00a0in\u00a0nearly every\u00a0month for five years in a row. Income needed to buy a home peaked at $122,000 in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Redfin attributed the improvement to lower mortgage rates and\u00a0slowing home-price growth.\u00a0The median home sale price in December was $426,747, up slightly from December 2024, but mortgage rates have fallen from 7% last year to about 6.1% now. Those factors brought the median\u00a0monthly\u00a0mortgage payment down from $2,800 to $2,675.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe housing affordability crisis is showing signs of easing as costs come down slightly but meaningfully, opening the door for more Americans to make the jump to homeownership,\u201d said Chen Zhao, Redfin\u2019s head of economics research. \u201cWhile housing\u00a0remains\u00a0historically expensive, the trajectory is finally starting to reverse, with the door to buying a home opening a bit wider rather than closing tighter. But while affordability is improving, Americans are contending with other obstacles on the road to buying a home, like nerves about layoffs and economic uncertainty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Redfin<\/a>\u00a0considers a home affordable if a buyer taking out a mortgage spends no more than 30% of their income on monthly housing\u00a0payments. Redfin based its analysis on median home sale prices, prevailing mortgage\u00a0rates\u00a0and\u00a0property tax\u00a0payments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Redfin.<\/p>\n

While affordability is improving, the typical U.S. household does not earn enough to afford the median-priced home. The typical American household earns just $86,185, about $25,000 less than needed, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On a local level, affordability is improving in 37 of the 50 largest U.S. cities, led by Dallas, where required earnings fell 7.4%,\u00a0and followed by\u00a0Sacramento, California,\u00a0and Jacksonville, Florida, where the amount\u00a0needed\u00a0was\u00a0down\u00a06.8%\u00a0and 5.9%, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the\u00a0flip side, the amount homebuyers needed to earn\u00a0actually increased\u00a0in some cities, led by Detroit (up 3.6%)\u00a0and followed by Chicago (3.5%)\u00a0and St. Louis (3%)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The typical household could\u00a0actually\u00a0afford to buy a median-priced home in only 12 metros, led by Pittsburgh, where\u00a0buyers needed\u00a0to earn $66,168,\u00a0and the typical household earned\u00a0$82,188, followed by St. Louis, where\u00a0$73,984\u00a0is\u00a0needed,\u00a0and the\u00a0typical household\u00a0earned\u00a0$87,471, and Cleveland, where\u00a0$66,725\u00a0was needed, and the typical\u00a0income was $76,912.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Courtesy of Redfin. After five years of worsening, housing affordability has\u00a0finally started to improve, according to a new…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":602278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[259308,960,13811,8165,5386,1818,88264,66055,17506],"class_list":["post-602277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-chen-zhao","tag-chicago","tag-home-prices","tag-housing-affordability","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-median-home-prices","tag-redfin","tag-sc"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116100304009852945","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}