Trying to buy a house is ‘playing a game you can’t win’ – BBC News

When Nathan Wilkins moved back in with his mother and sister in 2019, he hoped it would help him save money to buy a house.

But in the years since, the U.S. housing market has been transformed by rising rents, soaring home prices and a massive rise in mortgage rates, making homeownership even more impossible.

He and his sister are making more money than ever, says the 32-year-old insurance adjuster from Utah. But shelling out $2,500 (£1,960) a month in rent doesn’t leave much behind.

“It’s like I’m playing a game you can’t win,” he says. “The fact that we’re undervalued just makes me want to vomit.”

Such frustrations are spreading, fueling discontent and contributing to widespread pessimism about the U.S. economy, which threatens the country’s upcoming elections.

The median home sale price in the United States has jumped nearly 30% since the end of 2019, reaching $420,000 this spring.

And that doesn’t take into account the additional costs of rising interest rates, which now stand at about 7% for typical 30-year fixed-rate mortgages in the United States, up from about 3% in 2020. .

Home buyers today need an annual income of more than $100,000 – well above the nation’s median household income of around $75,000 – to be able to comfortably afford a home in most places in the United States, according to research firms such as Zillow and Bankrate, and face monthly payments that have roughly doubled. in just four years.

“It makes me cry a little,” says Megan Holter, who started looking to buy in Austin, Texas, in 2019, when banks were offering her a 30-year fixed rate of around 4.75%.

She paused her research when the pandemic hit, due to soaring costs of building materials and homes.

She and her wife finally bought a house this year, but only after swallowing a 6.625 percent interest rate and moving 1,200 miles north to Columbus, Ohio, a location selected from from a spreadsheet she created of low-cost cities.

“Housing affordability was the main thing we were thinking about for five years,” says the 30-year-old, who also left the public sector for the private sector to enable the purchase of a house.

“We moved mountains to make this possible.

“I’m forever grateful that we can afford it. I know many others can’t,” she adds.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, only 40.1% of renters expect to one day become homeowners, the lowest share since the bank began asking renters the question in 2014.

Even homeowners, whose long-term mortgages protect them from immediate financial consequences and who benefit from rising property values, tell pollsters that market changes are a cause for concern because they increase property taxes and insurance costs, while making moving a hassle. less affordable prospect.

A recent Harris poll found that more than 70% of Americans think the market will only get worse.

The issue fuels broader concerns about the rising cost of living, which has jumped 20% since 2021.

It’s one of the biggest challenges facing President Joe Biden, whose term coincided with the housing market’s transformation and who receives dismal marks for his handling of the economy in national polls.

Challenger Donald Trump, who has fared better, has sought to blame Mr. Biden for inflation, and while he generally does not denounce housing specifically, he regularly highlights “skyrocketing” rates of interest to assert that the economy is going in the wrong direction.

“Inflation has been a political noose for Biden in recent years,” says Brian Connolly, a business law professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business whose work focuses on housing issues. “Housing costs are another place where people are experiencing this financial crisis.”

In recent months, the White House has attempted to address concerns about affordability head-on, proposing proposals such as rules to limit closing costs and a $10,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers. House.

This marks a change in tone, after years of focusing on the economy’s strengths, including low unemployment. But with few immediate levers on which Mr. Biden can act, it is unclear whether the efforts will bear fruit.

His support has particularly eroded among young people – whose record turnout in 2020 contributed to his rise to power. Voters in this demographic are the least likely to be homeowners and the most likely to view housing affordability as a major concern.

“I don’t see any platform that is deliberately catering to someone like first-time home buyers, wanting to ease their pain,” says Braiden Dogherty, a 30-year-old from Florida who works in manufacturing and checks houses daily. for three years.

Despite a $50,000 inheritance, no debt and decent jobs, he and his wife are unable to find an affordable two-bedroom near their family in the Orlando area.

He says the housing cost problem is too big to blame on one politician or party, but that the apparent lack of solutions has contributed to his broader political disillusionment. He’s not sure how he’ll vote in November.

“I’m tired of it,” he said. “Housing is one of them.”

The growing outcry has increased pressure on the U.S. central bank to lower interest rates to provide relief, a move that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has said is likely at some point .

But expectations that a reduction would take place early this year, helping to improve the country’s morale, have been gradually pushed back. That reflects fears that progress in reducing inflation – which hovered at 3.4% in April, still well above the bank’s 2% target – could stall.

Instead, since January, mortgage rates have generally increased.

Mimi Than, a 29-year-old who recently purchased a three-bedroom apartment in the Boston, Massachusetts, area, says she faces monthly costs about $200 more than when her husband and They were pre-approved for loans in March.

They then did not fix the rate, unaware that borrowing costs could vary considerably. When they returned to their lender in April after making an offer, the interest rate they were offered was 6.9%, up from 6.5%.

She hopes they will move back later this year, allowing them to refinance.

“I check prices obsessively,” she says.

Many analysts argue that it is only a matter of time before inflation slows, paving the way for a reduction.

They note reports from private companies that show rent increases — which play an important role in U.S. inflation calculations — are fading compared to the breakneck pace of the pandemic amid rising of the supply of apartments.

With wages rising, more new housing being built and rents and housing prices rising more slowly, Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at housing site Zillow, says he also sees problems in accessibility will ease – but not in time for the November elections.

“It takes care of itself,” he said. “We still have a long way to go, of course, but we’re seeing improvements and I think we’re going to see more.”

But there is a darker view.

As more people are no longer able to access homeownership, rental rates could prove more resilient than expected, keeping inflation high.

And if mortgage rates don’t fall significantly, the sharp move in borrowing costs could act as a long-term constraint on supply, as builders pull out and homeowners who have secured mortgages when rates were lower gave up on moving.

Florida’s Braiden doesn’t see an easy solution from the Fed, which he says helped shape the current crisis by letting rates stay unusually low in the decade following the 2008 financial crisis .

“No matter what happens – whether they raise them, lower them or maintain them – my sense is that the next decade is probably going to be difficult, no matter what, for most people,” he says.