According to the National Association of Home Builders’ latest Housing Trends Report, 24% of prospective home buyers are able to afford at least half of the homes available in their markets, while the remaining 77% can only afford fewer than half the homes.
While these numbers still demonstrate serious housing affordability challenges, they show a slight improvement over one year ago, when only 20% of buyers could afford at least half of the homes for sale. The NAHB points to falling mortgage rates as a key factor in this shift.
The timing of the data collection for this report (June 16-28) is important, as results need to be interpreted in the larger context of the U.S. economy and the trajectory of new case counts at the time. … For these reasons, we assess that responses in this quarter’s report reflect a period when workers were returning to their jobs, mortgage rates looked increasingly attractive, and the pace of new cases had only recently started to regain speed.
