Homebuyers, Income & Buying Power

Research from the realty site, Zillow, says the median income in the U.S. is $86,300. That’s enough money for a 20% downpayment on an affordable $331,483 home. The good news? It’s up $30,302 from the $301,181 from a year ago.

The bad news? The median price of a single-family home in January of this year was $400,300.

Affordable — says Zillow — is a monthly mortgage payment that includes insurance and property taxes. It also can’t be more than 30% of a household income. And sadly, even with an interest rate of 6.19% buyers need an income of $94,032 to qualify.

And with more people entering the homebuyers market, The National Association of Realtors (NAR) says with the buyers market squeezed because a limited inventory, the national single-family home price could go even higher than $400,300.

As it sits now at $331,181 is affordable because interest rates have fallen a bit. Mortgage Daily News reports the average fixed-rate 30-year mortgage was 5.99% on February 27th. It has gone up since to 6.14%.

Zillow senior economist, Kara Ng said, still it’s down quite a bit from 6.79% a year ago.

Source link: CNBC — https://bit.ly/4rrrMp0