NAR Identifies Growing Rift Between Housing Availability and Affordability

NAR Identifies Growing Rift Between Housing Availability and Affordability

Existing-home sales are forecast to expand 1.7 percent in 2017, but a new housing affordability model created jointly by the National Association of Realtors® and realtor.com®, a leading online real estate destination, operated by operated by News Corp, suggests homebuyers at many income levels could see an inadequate amount of listings on the market within their price range in coming months. Using data on mortgages, state-level income and listings on realtor.com®, the Realtors® Affordability Distribution Curve and Score is NAR and realtor.com®'s new ongoing monthly research designed to examine affordability conditions at different income percentiles for all active inventory on the market. The Affordability Distribution Curve (link is external) examines how many listings are affordable to those in a particular income percentile. The Affordability Score (link is external) — varying between zero and two — is a calculation that is equal to twice the area below the Affordability Distribution Curve on a graph. A score of one or higher generally suggests a market where homes for sale are more affordable to households in proportion to their income distribution.
The states last month with the highest Affordability Score were Indiana (1.23), Ohio (1.22), Iowa (1.18), Kansas (1.17), and Michigan and Missouri (both at 1.14). The states with the lowest Affordability Score were Hawaii (0.52), California (0.60), District of Columbia (0.65), and Montana and Oregon (both at 0.67).