ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property data, and real estate analytics, has officially published the results from its fourth-quarter 2024 U.S. Home Affordability Report.
Going by the available details, this particular report showed that median-priced single-family homes and condos were less affordable during the fourth quarter of 2024, as compared to historical averages, in 98 percent of counties across the nation.
More on the same would reveal how this piece of data marks an extension of a three-year pattern, which includes home ownership requiring historically large portions of wages as U.S. home prices continue to break their record highs.
Not just that, it also reveals that major expenses on median-priced homes currently consume 34 percent of the average national wage. To give you some context, the stated figure marks an increase of more than one percentage both quarterly and annually, formally pushing the number above the common 28 percent lending guideline preferred by lenders.
Moving on, the results picked on from the fourth-quarter further went back on slight affordability improvements that we saw last quarter. As a result, the portion of average wages nationwide required for typical mortgage payments, property taxes and insurance is currently loitering 13 points beyond a landmark low point reached early in 2021.
“The U.S. housing market continues to generate great profits for most home sellers but also more and more financial stress for would-be buyers. Average workers now must shell out a larger portion of their wages for major home-ownership expenses than at any time since right before the housing market tanked in the late 2000s,” said Rob Barber, CEO for ATTOM. “Despite recent declines in mortgage rates, down payments on typical home purchases have reached four times the average national wage.”
Talk about ATTOM’s report on a slightly deeper level, we begin from how the national median price for single-family homes and condos has risen to a record high of $364,750 in the fourth quarter of 2024. This translates to a 2.1 percent increase over the third quarter. It also stands 11.4 percent above the typical price witnessed during the fourth quarter of 2023.
If we talk on a county level, though, the pattern is more varied. It happens to be the case because median home prices have increased, since the fourth quarter of last year, in 503, or 88.9 percent, of the 566 counties included in the report. From a quarter standpoint, typical values they have risen in only 210, or 37.1 percent of those markets.
Among the 47 counties in the report, with a population of at least 1 million, the biggest year-over-year median prices increases came across Bronx County, NY (up 13.3 percent annually); Wayne County (Detroit), MI (up 12.9 percent); Cook County (Chicago), IL (up 12.1 percent); Suffolk County (Long Island), NY (up 11.5 percent) and Santa Clara County, CA (up 11 percent).
On the other hand, the only counties, with a population of at least 1 million, where median prices remain down from the fourth quarter of 2023 were New York County (Manhattan), NY (down 3.3 percent) and Kings County (Brooklyn), NY (down 1 percent).
Another detail worth a mention here is that, as home values keep rising throughout most of the U.S., year-over-year price changes have outpaced changes in weekly annualized wages during the fourth quarter of 2024 in 429, or 75.8 percent of the counties. You see, counties where prices have increased more than wages annually include Los Angeles County, CA; Cook County, (Chicago), IL; Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ; San Diego County, CA, and Orange County, CA (outside Los Angeles).
Turning our attention towards mortgage, on a national level, the typical $2,092 cost of mortgage payments, homeowner insurance, mortgage insurance and property taxes is up 4.6 percent quarterly and 6.1 percent annually to a new all-time high. For better understanding, this has outdone the 1 percent quarterly and 3.1 annual gains in the average national wage.
Among other things, the report in question would reveal how the latest expense total commonly consumes 34 percent of the average annual national wage i.e. $73,918, up from 32.5 percent the third quarter of 2024.
