{"id":371736,"date":"2026-10-13T07:26:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T07:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/371736\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T07:26:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T07:26:31","slug":"most-americans-wont-be-able-to-afford-a-house-until-2031","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/371736\/","title":{"rendered":"Most Americans won’t be able to afford a house until 2031"},"content":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s housing affordability crisis<\/a> could drag on for at least another five years \u2014 and for New Yorkers, the wait could stretch well beyond a decade.<\/p>\n

Housing costs nationwide could return to their 2018 levels relative to household income by 2031, according to a new Redfin analysis<\/a> \u2014 but buyers in New York City, Long Island and roughly half of the major metropolitan areas studied could face another decade of financial pain.<\/p>\n

That optimistic national scenario assumes mortgage rates fall to 6% while annual home-price growth holds steady at 2.1%.<\/p>\n

New York City homebuyers could wait at least another decade for housing affordability to return to 2018 levels. elena_suvorova \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

If rates remain around 7.5% but home prices stop rising, affordability could recover by April 2032 instead.<\/p>\n

And in an even rosier \u2014 though unlikely \u2014 scenario, where rates drop to 6% and prices flatten, housing costs could return to their pre-pandemic benchmark by February 2029.<\/p>\n

But the picture is considerably bleaker in the Northeast and Midwest, where stubbornly rising home prices continue to outpace wage growth.<\/p>\n

Long Island is feeling the squeeze particularly hard.<\/p>\n

Nassau County, ranked the nation\u2019s strongest seller\u2019s market b<\/a>y Redfin, has seen home prices climb 5.3% over the past year, outpacing projected annual income growth of 3.6%.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a 1.7-percentage-point gap between home-price appreciation and expected income gains, leaving prospective buyers struggling to keep up in an already fiercely competitive market \u2014 even if mortgage rates fall to 6%.<\/p>\n

That imbalance means affordability could take at least 10 years to return to 2018 levels, even if mortgage rates fall to 6%.<\/p>\n

New York City<\/a>, Newark, New Brunswick and Philadelphia face similarly lengthy recoveries, along with Chicago, Boston and several other major markets.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia is among the East Coast markets where rising home prices continue to outpace income growth. Umm Hamzah \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Chicago home prices, for example, have surged 5.5% year over year, compared with projected annual income growth of 3.9%.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may seem counterintuitive that housing costs could return to normal sooner in the country\u2019s most expensive markets than in a place like Chicago or Philly, but it comes down to the direction of home prices and incomes,\u201d Redfin senior economist Asad Khan said in the company\u2019s published analysis.<\/p>\n

Redfin defines \u201cnormal\u201d as a return to August 2018, when the typical American homebuyer needed to spend about 30% of household income on monthly housing payments, including mortgage principal and interest, property taxes and insurance, assuming a 20% down payment.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in many Midwest and East Coast markets, home prices are still climbing faster than incomes \u2014 so even if rates were to drop meaningfully, a buyer\u2019s monthly payment wouldn\u2019t return to something that feels normal anytime soon,\u201d he added in the report.<\/p>\n

Seattle is among the West Coast markets where housing affordability could rebound relatively quickly. adonis_abril \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Ironically, some of America\u2019s notoriously expensive West Coast markets could recover much faster.<\/p>\n

San Jose, California, is closest to returning to its 2018 affordability levels, thanks to a 3.2% annual decline in home prices and projected wage growth of 6.5%.<\/p>\n

Under a scenario with mortgage rates at 7.5%, San Jose could return to its previous benchmark by October 2027.<\/p>\n

Austin, Texas, could follow in February 2028, while Oakland could reach that point by April 2028. Seattle and Portland are also among the markets positioned for relatively quick recoveries.<\/p>\n

Austin, Texas, could see housing affordability return to 2018 levels as early as February 2028. Zenstratus \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

San Jose home prices fell 3.2% year over year, while incomes are projected to rise 6.5%. Uladzik Kryhin \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

San Francisco presents an unusual case. Its housing costs briefly returned to 2018 levels when mortgage rates were around 7.25% in September, but soaring home prices \u2014 up 9.7% annually amid an AI-fueled wealth boom \u2014 threaten to push affordability further out of reach.<\/p>\n

At 7.5% mortgage rates, San Francisco could face another decade before costs normalize.<\/p>\n

Crucially, that doesn\u2019t mean homes would suddenly become cheap. In expensive markets such as San Jose and San Francisco, returning to 2018 affordability levels could still leave homeownership beyond the reach of many residents.<\/p>\n

The analysis examined 46 major metropolitan areas and modeled different combinations of mortgage rates, home-price growth and projected income gains.<\/p>\n

And while the scenarios offer some hope for frustrated house hunters, they are hypothetical projections rather than forecasts of what will actually happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany house hunters feel stuck between two bad options: Stretch themselves to buy at today\u2019s rates, or wait for lower rates only to see prices climb further out of reach,\u201d Khan said in the published report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"America\u2019s housing affordability crisis could drag on for at least another five years \u2014 and for New Yorkers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1586,433,2136,3365,5013,2907,20601,14452,1023,1722,9,24,55,54,7607,56,1491,3006,9214,773],"class_list":["post-371736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-affordability","tag-affordable-housing","tag-california","tag-economy","tag-homeowners","tag-housing","tag-interest-rates","tag-long-island-real-estate","tag-luxury-real-estate","tag-markets","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-newark","tag-ny","tag-real-estate","tag-residential-real-estate","tag-san-jose","tag-suffolk-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}