Local Opportunities: Finding Relatively Affordable Housing, Even in Largely Unaffordable Markets
Some of the metros with the best job prospects are also the ones with the least affordable housing, making it difficult for new residents – especially renters – to get a toehold in the housing market. But even within these very expensive metros, pockets of relative affordability do exist at a city level, offering some hope for new residents and would-be job seekers.
December 2016 Market Report: What Could Flattening Rents Mean for 2017?
A months-long streak of accelerating home value growth was met with an equally long stretch of flattening rents to end 2016, a trend with interesting implications for the housing market as a whole as attention turns to the busy 2017 home shopping season to come.
November 2016 Market Report: Home Values Growing at Fastest Pace Since 2006
As 2016 comes to a close, annual growth in rents has stabilized, the number of homes listed for sale is at its lowest point on record and annual home value growth is accelerating. Looking ahead into 2017 and beyond, all three of these trends are likely to continue influencing each other and the market as a whole.
Q3 2016 Housing Affordability: Renting More Affordable Than It’s Been in Two Years
Incomes are growing, and growth in rents is slowing – leading to a (very) modest, but welcome, improvement in overall U.S. rental affordability in the third quarter.
How Affordable is Housing in Your Congressional District?
In looking at housing affordability across the nation’s congressional districts, we found home values and rents tend to be higher along the coasts and in denser, urban communities, regardless which party represents a given community in Congress.
Q3 2016 Market Report: High Demand Continues to Put Pressure on Home Values
Now three-fourths of the way through 2016, the trends we’ve seen shaping the market throughout much of the year – namely, high demand for homes to buy and low supply of homes for sale, which have conspired to push up prices – look firmly entrenched.
Is Your City Building Enough Housing? Weighing Today’s Housing Promises Versus Past Housing Delivery
A lack of new housing supply has been blamed for a raft of housing issues plaguing many large U.S. housing markets, including rapid appreciation, deteriorating affordability (especially at the lower end of the market and for renters) and very limited inventory. In response, mayors’ offices nationwide have formulated plans focused on building new housing and rehabilitating and preserving what housing already exists. But are these plans enough, and are they feasible?
Halfway through 2016, an all-too-familiar housing affordability story continues to shape the U.S. housing market. Incredibly low mortgage interest rates are helping make homeownership more affordable, despite relatively rapid home value growth. But renting a home is decidedly unaffordable, even as growth in rents slows down.
Zillow Housing Confidence Index: Homeowners Got Swagger, But Buyers Increasingly Discouraged
Homeowners have a lot of swagger in today’s market, and for good reason – home values are rising, demand is high and homes are selling very quickly. But the same trends helping to buoy homeowner confidence are also proving increasingly discouraging for potential buyers, particularly among current renters, a critical imbalance that could have important impacts on the market going forward.
Rent Affordability by Tier: High Rents Aren’t a Problem If You Earn Enough to Afford them
As growth in rents outpaces growth in incomes, rent affordability (the share of the typical American’s income that goes to rent) has steadily deteriorated over the past five years – from a historic average of 26 percent, to roughly 30 percent currently. But focusing only on medians can sometimes hide more than it reveals. In this case, there are sharply different trends at the top and at the bottom of the market.
