The affordability squeeze
The monthly payment on a median new home doubled in under three years.
Home prices and mortgage rates usually get charted separately. Buyers experience them together, as a monthly payment.
Take the Census Bureau's median sales price of new houses and put 20% down on a 30-year fixed mortgage. In January 2021, at $355,000 and a 2.67% rate, principal and interest came to $1,147 a month, about 27% of median full-time earnings.
By October 2023 the price was $423,200 and the rate 7.31%. The same calculation gives $2,323 a month, twice as much in under three years, and 47% of median earnings.
Pay did rise: median weekly earnings are up 40% since 2019. That comes nowhere near a doubled payment. Home prices overall, by the Case-Shiller national index, are up 61% since January 2019.
Conditions have eased only slightly. In April 2026, with the median at $410,700 and rates at 6.38%, the payment was $2,051, or 38% of median earnings. That still leaves out property taxes and insurance, both of which have also climbed.
- MORTGAGE30US · 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States
- CSUSHPISA · S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index
- MSPUS · Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States
- LES1252881500Q · Employed full time: Median usual weekly nominal earnings (second quartile): Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over