A combination of higher median home prices and rising interest rates have made the U.S. housing market the least affordable it’s been since Q3 2008, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index.
The national median home price reached$250,000 in Q4 2016, while the average mortgage rate reached 3.84% in the same period.
Nationally, only 59.9% of homes sold in Q4 were considered affordable to families earning the U.S. median income of $65,700.
The most affordable housing market is Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pa, where 90.4% of homes sold in Q4 2016 were considered affordable for the area’s median family income of $53,900.
Meanwhile, San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco, CA remains the nation’s least affordable housing market, where only 7.8% of homes sold in Q4 were affordable for the area’s median family income of $104,700.