ATTOM: Homeownership Remains a Financial Stretch
(Illustration courtesy of ATTOM)
Median-priced single-family homes and condos were less affordable in first-quarter 2025 compared to historical averages in 97 percent of counties around the nation with enough data to analyze, according to ATTOM, Irvine, Calif.
The firm’s first-quarter 2025 U.S. Home Affordability Report found the first quarter extends a three-year pattern of home ownership requiring historically large portions of wages as U.S. home prices stay at or near record levels.
“Home affordability is in a holding pattern this quarter – financially stressful for average wage earners but not changing much,” ATTOM CEO Rob Barber said. “This is not unusual during the Winter lull when home prices level out. A recent small decline in mortgage rates surely hasn’t hurt either for fledgling buyers.”
Barber added that if history is a good guide, prices will rise as we head into the peak buying season that’s about to start, “which will worsen affordability measures.”
The report also found that major expenses on median-priced homes currently consume 32 percent of the average national wage. That level is virtually the same as in the fourth quarter of last year, although about one percentage point up from a year ago, keeping the figure above the common 28 percent lending guideline preferred by lenders.
The current and historic affordability levels represent the latest measures of how home ownership remains a financial stretch for average workers around the nation. It comes as the national median home price has dipped slightly this quarter, to $351,000, during the typically slow Winter home-buying season. But with home mortgages rates still near 7 percent, the drop-off is too small to push the ratio of ownership expenses to wages back into the affordable range ATTOM said.
“With so much economic uncertainty these days connected to investment markets, federal policy shifts and very mixed economic forecasts, it is anyone’s guess how much prices will move,” Barber noted.
