It's not an enormous hurdle for folk that already own a home, but it creates a huge barrier to entry. You can get in for less but then you get to waste obscene amounts of money on PMI. Literally just throwing money into someone else's pocket for no return.
Glad I got my house two years ago. I was hesitant at the time because houses were going so fast you barely had time to think about it, get second opinions, or really anything.
My wife and I bought our house two years ago too. The market around here has gone utterly bonkers since. If we had tried to save up a while longer like we were originally planning to we would never have gotten there.
There must be something wrong with the math that they used here, because I'm familiar with a few of these markets and have a higher salary than what is listed and definetely couldn't buy a house in those markets without it being more expensive than would be responsible - both in terms of down payment and monthly cost
For example, I think you'd need a lot more than 180k to buy a house in LA
Yeah that could be it, or maybe they're doing the math as literally "is your monthly take home less than the cost of the monthly payments". In which case I could see 180 qualifying, but that isn't how any sane person would define affordability lol
And that's just to pay the mortgage, never mind things like food or saving to retire or even the 20% down payment the graphic assumes that you've made.
As a European, at first I thought this showed house prices, and not yearly salary required to buy a house and thought: "well, that's not too bad ...", but oof!
That's the fun part about this specific market, it isn't a bubble that can pop. The people that caused this issue had the money to buy the houses they did. This is just the new normal, and the best part about that is that house prices only ever go up!
Yay! I can't wait until the absolute garbage dilapidated pile of shit in the worst parts of town and a flood zone go from 300k now to 500k or more! It's going to be so fun to see houses that I'd never in a million years want to live in, sell for hundreds of thousands above what I could afford anyway.
The argument from asshats with no empathy used to be: so move to a LCOL area (ignoring that work cant be found there.) Well even ignoring the work issue, those dont exist anymore. The WFH "movement" gave people the freedom to move to those LCOL areas so now they aren't low cost anymore.
I can't even leave the expensive shit hole area I live in because everywhere else is too expensive with less job opportunities... The future is so fun!
I don't know how accurate it might be but I heard of a theory recently for the US that the recent reversal where students will be required to repay their loans in full is going to tank the housing market because a large chunk of people from the very demographic that would normally be first-time buyers won't be able to afford to buy. There were supposed to be a bunch of cascading effects from this, but I'm sorry I can't remember further details now.
Also in the fun struggle to find long term domicile here. One thing I've been running numbers is just straight up building new houses. Many states building is cheaper than buying; disregarding zoning and permits.
I'm hoping with new remote work abilities that in the future I can caravan with other like-minded Gen-z/millennials to some unincorporated stretch of rural land and just set up a new town, wild West style.
Seattle is less affordable than it seems. Unlike California and many other states, WA has neither a property tax increase limit nor a homestead exemption. As a result, property taxes in WA, already some of the highest in the country, arbitrarily track market prices and don’t get any kind of tax break. My property taxes cost more than my 30yr fixed mortgage now. If the price trends continue, I won’t be able to afford my house within a decade, just because on paper someone might theoretically be willing to pay some ridiculous amount to buy it from me.