The housing market's “double trouble”
For households earning $75,000 to $100,000 there are 400,000 fewer affordable homes available for sale when compared to the start of the pandemic, with only 245,300 affordable listings in December 2021 compared to 656,200 listings in December 2019. In some expensive housing markets like San Francisco, San Jose, Honolulu, and Washington, D.C., homes are surprisingly more affordable for households with higher incomes than they were before the start of the pandemic due to increasing incomes and lower mortgage rates. “Moreover, the homeownership rate has been around 50% for all households in the expensive metro markets, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, and therefore it’s becoming nearly impossible to afford a home, especially for Black households,” Yun said in statement.