Middle-income buyers face the most severe housing shortage

Middle income home buyers in the United States are finding little on the market to buy, even if they can qualify and afford a mortgage. These would-be buyers face the most severe housing shortage of any other income bracket, according to a new analysis from the National Association of Realtors and Realtor.com that found the market is short more than 300,000 affordable homes for these buyers.

The report defined a middle-income home buyer as someone in a household earning up to $75,000 a year, the median household income in the United States. Given that income, these buyers can purchase homes valued up to $256,000 without being overburdened with housing costs.

And there are a lot fewer homes in this category than a few years ago.

Middle-income buyers can afford to buy less than a quarter - only 23% - of listings that are currently on the market. Five years ago, this income group could afford to buy half of all available homes, according to the report.

"Middle-income buyers face the largest shortage of homes among all income groups, making it even harder for them to build wealth through homeownership," said Nadia Evangelou, NAR senior economist and director of real estate research.

At the end of April 2023, approximately 1.1 million homes were available for sale, an increase of 5 percentage points from one year ago - but only a fraction of those are available to middle-income buyers. Nearly 51% of households earn $75,000 or less. In a balanced market, these households would be able to afford to buy 51% of the homes available for sale.

But that's not the case.