If Nobody Can Afford A Home... Who’s Going To Buy Them?

☕️ Get a free bag of fresh coffee with any Trade subscription at ----- Sign up for my FREE newsletter! - Support me on Patreon - ----- My Other Channel: @HowHistoryWorks Edited By: Andrew Gonzales Music Courtesy of: Epidemic Sound Select Footage Courtesy of: Getty Images For sponsorship inquiries, please contact sponsors@ Sign up for my newsletter 👈 All materials in these videos are for educational purposes only and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. This video does not provide investment or financial advice of any kind. #realestate #finance #investing ----- Fewer young people than ever before are going to be able to buy a house in their lifetime, and at the same time homes are getting more expensive every year… But if nobody can afford to buy a house then how do they keep getting more expensive? A family home should be the bedrock of your financial life, it gives you somewhere to live while building up equity in a place that you can one day call your own. Owning a home with a thirty-year mortgage is cheaper out of pocket every month in most cities than renting, so if you can buy your own home, you will be richer now and richer in the future. You already know this, but if you are in the seventy-five [75%] of my audience that doesn’t own a home it’s probably because you can’t afford one. According to a report by Redfin only twenty one percent [21%] of homes that went on sale in 2022 were considered affordable, that’s down for SIXTY percent [60%] of homes on sale in 2021. That means in just one year two thirds of ALL affordable housing became too expensive for the average American. The team conducting this survey concluded that housing affordability is at its lowest point in history. But what’s the end game here? If people can’t afford a home, then house prices can’t go up anymore… Right? Wrong… I don’t want to make another one of those stupid finfluencer videos about how the housing market is going to crash in three point five days but there are three reasons why it could get a lot worse before it gets better. The first reason is that houses do not need to be affordable for you to buy one. If you think that can’t make sense, there is an entire industry working to make it true. You don’t save money to buy a house, you save money for a down payment. Wages have not kept up with house prices but a twenty percent [20%] down payment only grows at one fifth [1/5th] the rate in absolute terms so people are still able to get into the market. According the Zillow the average home sold in America in 2020 traded for two hundred and thirty thousand dollars [$230,000]. At the start of 2023 the average home price was THREE hundred and thirty thousand dollars [$330,000] a jump of one hundred thousand dollars [$100,000] in less than three years. According to Forbes the average American makes a salary of fifty-nine thousand dollars BEFORE tax [$59,428] after federal tax and FICA that leaves them with a take home of forty-nine thousand dollars [$49,000]. If this average person saved a ridiculous SEVENTY percent [70%] of their take home pay, to buy a house they would be just as far away from their goal after three years because the price of the average house grew just as fast as their savings. The average home earns as much as the average person. But most people only save for a down payment so seventy percent [70%] becomes fourteen percent [14%] or seven percent [7%] if it’s a dual income household where the other partner also earns the average salary. That still a major savings commitment when fifty seven percent [57%] of American can’t afford a one thousand dollar [$1,000] without taking on debt. Fourteen percent [14%] of your take home pay should be more manageable than seventy percent [70%] but remember this is ONLY how much you would need to save JUST to keep up with price increases, this doesn’t actually get you any closer to your goal of buying a home. Lenders and banks with a vested interest in real estate assets across the country know this is still too hard for most families who also need to pay for food, rent and other essentials that are also outpacing wages. So they have moved the goal post. A report by the national Association of Realtors found that the average down payment for a first home buyer was just SEVEN percent [7%] and the average down payment for a REPEAT purchaser that has had time to build equity in their previous home was only seventeen percent [17%]. Well, it’s time to learn How Money Works to find out if this circus really can go on forever.