Source: New York Times —
As prices rise, higher mortgage payments follow, and after nearly three years of rapid home appreciation during the pandemic, qualifying for a home loan is more difficult than ever. Today’s buyers also face the additional cost of rising interest rates.
In its most recent quarterly report, HSH.com, a source for national mortgage and home equity rates and news, charted the annual income required to qualify for a mortgage on a median price home in the country’s 50 largest metropolitan areas.
The website looked at third-quarter 2022 median sale prices of single-family homes, factoring in the industry-standard 28 percent debt-to-income ratio used to qualify prospective borrowers. (A 20 percent down payment and a fixed-rate, 30-year loan at a rate concurrent with the study were assumed; local property taxes and homeowner’s insurance costs were also included.)
It found that the national median home price was $398,500, requiring a payment of $2,233 a month and a qualifying household income of $95,717 a year. The national median household income, about $70,000 a year, puts this out of reach for most households. But the median home price rose only 9.75 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2022, while in the previous four quarters — Q3-2021 through Q2-2022 — it increased between 14.25 and 16.91 percent. That change represented “a considerable deceleration,” according to the report.
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