It’s harder than ever to afford a home in the US, with higher mortgage rates claiming a bigger share of incomes and prices still rising at double-digit rates across most of the country.
The monthly bill on a typical existing single-family home with a 20% down payment jumped to $1,841 in the second quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s up 32%, or $444, from the first quarter and a 50% jump from a year earlier. Families spent about 24% of their incomes on mortgage payments in the second quarter, up from 19% in the previous three months and 17% last year.
