Not to be outdone by the other doom-and-gloom housing headlines, Bloomberg has run its own analysis to confirm that, in deed, housing affordability is at an all-time low in the U.S.
In September 2022, a median-income household would have had to spend a little over 46 percent of its income to afford a median-priced home—up 14 percent year-over-year. The data measured affordability based on the ability of a median-income household to absorb the estimated annual costs associated with owning a median-priced home (i.e. mortgage, estimated taxes and insurance).
The five least-affordable metro areas in the U.S. are all in California, requiring a median-income household to spend at least 80 percent of its income to afford a median-priced home. Those areas include Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, and San Diego-Carlsbad.
In all but one U.S. metro area with more than 500,000 people, a median-income household would have to spend more than 30 percent of its income to own a median-priced home.
According to Bloomberg, only one metro area—Toledo, Ohio—rated above the affordability index.