Rising incomes are helping to offset recent increases in mortgage rates and gave a boost to housing affordability in the first quarter of this year, the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index shows.
The index showed that 61.6 percent of new and existing homes sold between the beginning of January and the end of March were affordable to families earning the U.S. median income of $71,900. That does mark an increase from the 59.6 percent of homes sold that were affordable to median-income earners in the fourth quarter.
The median family income increased 5.7 percent to $71,900 in 2018, up from $68,000 a year ago. “This wage growth helped to boost housing affordability,” says Robert Dietz, the NAHB’s chief economist. “A growing economy, along with tight inventories and increasing household formations, will lift housing production in the year ahead. But we expect mortgage rates to continue to rise, and this will place downward pressure on affordability.”
Average mortgage rates surged nearly 30 basis points in the first quarter. They averaged 4.34 percent in the first quarter, up from a 4.06 percent average in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Of the 237 metro areas analyzed in the first quarter, the index showed 167 markets saw an increase in affordability compared to the fourth quarter of 2017. Sixty-eight reported a loss and two were unchanged.
The nation’s most affordable major housing market remained Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pa. In the metro area, 90.9 percent of all new and existing homes sold in the first quarter were affordable to families earning the area’s median income of $60,100. Other affordable major housing markets (in order) were Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, Ind.; Scranton-Wilkes Barre-Hazleton, Pa.; Toledo, Ohio; and Harrisburg-Carlisle, Pa.
The most affordable small market is Cumberland, Md.-W.Va., where 98.5 percent of the homes sold in the first quarter are affordable to families who earn the median income of $55,500.
On the other end, for the second consecutive quarter, San Francisco remained the nation’s least affordable major housing market. Just 9.2 percent of homes that sold in the first quarter of 2018 were affordable to families earning the area’s median income of $119,600. California continued to dominate the least affordable markets. These cities fell closely behind San Francisco: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale; Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine; San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara; and San Diego-Carlsbad.
Source: National Association of Home Builders
