Tag: affordability

As promised in yesterday’s affordability post, here’s an updated look at the “affordable home” price chart.

The “affordable” home price hit an all-time high of $551,493 in May, thanks to increasing incomes and decreasing mortgage interest rates. The “affordable” home price of $551,493 in King County would have a monthly payment of $2,006.

If interest rates were at a more reasonable level of 6 percent (which is still quite low by historical standards), the “affordable” home price would be just $382,986—about $103,000 lower than it is today.

It was recently requested that I take a refreshed look at the affordability stats, so here’s an updated look at our affordability index charts for the counties around Puget Sound.

As of May, affordability is still not great for home buyers, but it would be much, much worse if not for the current absurdly low interest rates.

Let’s have an updated look at our affordability index charts for the counties around Puget Sound.

As of October, affordability is still bad, but not terrible for home buyers. Median home prices have dipped just slightly in the last few months…

Here’s an updated look at the “affordable home” price chart.

In this graph I flip the variables in the affordability index calculation around to other sides of the equation to calculate what price home the a family earning the median household income could afford to buy at today’s mortgage rates if they put 20% down and spent 30% of their monthly income.

The “affordable” home price hit $496,051 back in April, but has since dropped off…