08/25/2026
š” Waiting for housing affordability to go back to ānormalā?
Hereās some perspective.
According to Fannie Mae calculations, for affordability to return to 2016ā2019 levels, it would take oneāor some combinationāof these three things:
š Home prices would need to fall 38%
š° Household incomes would need to rise more than 60%
š Mortgage rates would need to fall to about 2.35%
Could the market improve? Absolutely.
But waiting for prices, rates, or incomes to magically return us to the affordability of years past may not be the best strategy.
The better question might be:
What can you do with the market we actually have?
Buy now? Wait? Sell and reposition your equity? Downsize? Invest differently?
There isnāt one right answer for everyone. Thatās why real estate decisions should start with your goalsānot predictions about what the market might do next.
Letās run the numbers before you make the decision.
