So the Australian argument holds in the US. It just needs a different starting point.
What Harvard found
The Harvard JCHS report is the most authoritative annual measure of US housing affordability, and the 2025 findings are stark.
Monthly mortgage payments on the median-priced home – assuming a 30-year loan with a 3.5% down payment – hit $2,570 in 2024. That figure is 40% higher than it was in 1990, adjusted for the same loan terms. Qualifying for that mortgage requires an annual income of at least $126,700. Only six million of the nation’s nearly 46 million renters can meet that benchmark.
The affordability gap
US median home price as a multiple of median household income, 1970-2024
In 1970 a home cost 2.3 times the median household income — the most affordable point in the modern record. Today it costs 5.1 times. Parents who bought in the early 1980s bought near the historical midpoint. Their kids are buying at the all-time high.
Price-to-income ratio Historical norm: 3.0x 2024: 5.1x (record)
Sources: National Association of Realtors; U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey; Best Interest Financial (Feb 2026); Housing Almanac (Apr 2026); Visual Capitalist / FRED (2025). Confirmed anchors: 1970 (2.3x), 1980 (3.65x), 1985 (3.5x), 2005 (4.7x), 2012 (3.5x), 2022 (5.83x), 2024 (5.1x). Intermediate years indicative.
The median price of an existing single-family home hit $412,500 in 2024 – five times median household income. Harvard senior research associate Daniel McCue called it “shocking” and noted it was “significantly above the price-to-income ratio of 3 that has traditionally been considered affordable.”
Existing home sales dropped to a 30-year low of 4.06 million. The US homeownership rate fell in 2024 for the first time in eight years. The median age of a first-time homebuyer hit 38.
