U.S. Housing Affordability Is Near Crisis Levels: Home Prices Rose From 3.5x to 5x Median Income Since 1985

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faithOver@reddit

Sucks. But just want to point out Canadian cities were at 11x and now down to 9x. This can get worse.

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va_wanderer@reddit

Wasn't part of this banning most foreign ownership of residential real estate?

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faithOver@reddit

Lots of measures; - foreign buyers ban - vacant property tax - air bnb bans - restrictions on lending

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faithOver@reddit

It’s not possible. Look at whats currently happening. We’re building even less housing now that the presale model has collapsed.

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RyanB_@reddit

Also, at least here in Edmonton, some genuinely great zoning changes allowing for greatly enhanced density.

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GreenFalling@reddit

Aren't some Chinese cities (Hong Kong? Shanghai? Beijing?) at 30x? It can always get worse

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faithOver@reddit

Yup!

I chose to bring up Canada because economically and just generally systems wise it’s very similar.

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gobeklitepewasamall@reddit

What is it with the low quality article sourcing here?

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Johnnylemo@reddit

Only 5x? More affordable than much of the world.

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NyriasNeo@reddit

I grew up in Hong Kong.

https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/asia/hong-kong/price-history

And I quote, "Average home prices were 14.4 times the gross annual median household income in 2024, down from 16.7 times in 2023, 18.8 times in 2022, and 20.7 times three years ago."

In comparison, 5x is practically paradise. Even a low of 14.4 in Hong Kong is always 3x as bad as the 5 here.

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Sknowles12@reddit

So we return to multi generational living.

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If the dwelling is big enough, which is so in the US. But look up Hong Kong. Family of 4 can be forced into a tiny apartment like 300 sq feet. There are smaller apt that you can buy. It is very bad over there.

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verstohlen@reddit

Means people gonna be spending much less on discretionary stuff, like movies, restaurant, entertainment, vacations, etc. so best to get out of the discretionary business while you can.

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smackson@reddit

Time to invest in storage and security.

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daviddjg0033@reddit

seems like a trend of commodity or capital over labor. VA data centers are so huge walkimg by one is longer than walking from 2nd to 4th ave in NYC. semiconductors are worth more today than a whole computer plus the semiconductor.

my so bought a car that was 20y old but only 80k miles for an ungodly amount I refinanced - her rate was well over subprime. why? because she worked nights to go to college and now works at the best county hospital.

house paid off but barely making it. i withdrew from savings every month since 2024.

anyone see the reddit popular page post with 2008 car prices? the resell value today with 100k miles is above 2008.

we are not recycling plastics (if you follow this sub you know.) but its also: windmills, solar panels, circuit boards. we will not recycle dams we will be forced to destroy them, allow wildlife to recover while displacing lost energy with fossil fuels? because drought to flood to drought is Oroville, CA or Hawaii 2026.

storage? i have 2 generations of fine china, vinyl records and other inedible trinkets. open up a junk store with a junk yard in the back for 3rd world kids to burn the plastic off of copper wires.

maybe I can steal catalytic converters - do you have to meth to do that?

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Sknowles12@reddit

Storage of food is one of the best things to do to survive what’s coming. And finding a small group of people to share or trade supplies with. Those authentic people who are also seeking.

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Someones_Dream_Guy@reddit

US had affordable housing?

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CyberSmith31337@reddit

Any major metropolitan area, that number is skewed waaaaaay higher.

Like, for example, in the Bay Area salaries seem higher on paper. But making $200k a year when homes are $3.1 million is worse than buying a $500k house when salaries are $50k.

Places like San Francisco, Manhattan, and Seattle absolutely destroy the 5x ratio

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HeadBarracuda01@reddit

i live in a particularly fucked up zip code outside of seattle and in 2025 the median home sale price was 10x the median household income. idk how anyone does it.

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followupquestion@reddit

My zip code shows the median household income at $86k and the median home sale price at $1.3 MM. If it weren’t for generational wealth and/or inheriting a house here, very few people would own property in my area.

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Kootenay4@reddit

I live in a small city (\~40k) in a rural county and make a little better than median income for this area. Even the cheap small run down houses are 6-8x my salary, and anything actually sort of nice and move in ready (think a 1600 square foot 3 bed/1 bath without mold or foundation issues) is more like 10-12x.

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Cultural-Answer-321@reddit

LOL, near? We are WAY past, "near". Have been for decades.

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va_wanderer@reddit

Which is the point, as there's more wealth to be sucked out of the modern adult by turning everything into rentals, borrowing, and as little ownership of anything for your dollar as possible.

Putting the "lord" back into "landlords", as it were.

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He2oinMegazord@reddit

Lol "near"

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Soctial@reddit

Would hate to see what they consider crisis levels

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Numerous-Mixture4325@reddit

This is only half of the story. One should really be comparing not cost of the house but cost of the 30y mortgage payment. At the end of the day it's the cost of the mortgage (or the monthly payment) that is the real bottom line for a buyer.

It's easy enough to do directly in Fred (the mortgage payment/monthly income ratio would take another step https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1WzgP

In that link (should be fully editable, so you can see the mort payment calc etc) I have the monthly mort payment on the median house price if with a 10% down payment, v. median income / 12/3 (A third of monthly income)

I used a 1/3 monthly income b/c it is a common metric for affordability for housing, and so if you go by that metric when monthly payment line is lower than the monthly income line = affordable.

orange green is national, blues are King County, Wa (Seattle)

Nationally it doesn't look that bad. Housing became unaffordable for a while after the rate spike, but it looks like wages are catching up? (surprising ... )

But regionally and that's not the case. Seattle mort payment is almost DOUBLE the affordable line (and i very much doubt wages have come up in the past 18 months since the last update). And I bet that's true many many more regions than not. The national median hides the ridiculousness.

Also, as an aside, I'll just mention seattle rent is actually right around that affordable level. 3200ish to rent a house ...

This person should grab a bunch of regional medians, export to excel, and do the mort payment v. income comparison. I'd have posted this to their post but i cannot figure out HIVE like at all :|

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StatementBot@reddit

The following submission statement was provided by /u/davideownzall:

This chart shows a long-term breakdown in U.S. housing affordability: median home prices have risen faster than incomes since 1985, pushing the price-to-income ratio from ~3.5x to nearly 5x today. In many metros it is far higher. This reflects structural supply constraints, zoning limits, and growing demand concentration in major job centers, making homeownership increasingly out of reach for younger and middle-income households.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1tldvdw/us_housing_affordability_is_near_crisis_levels/onetyf0/

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davideownzall@reddit (OP)

This chart shows a long-term breakdown in U.S. housing affordability: median home prices have risen faster than incomes since 1985, pushing the price-to-income ratio from ~3.5x to nearly 5x today. In many metros it is far higher. This reflects structural supply constraints, zoning limits, and growing demand concentration in major job centers, making homeownership increasingly out of reach for younger and middle-income households.