<story><title>There Were Half As Many Affordable Homes For Sale In 2022 As There Were In 2021</title><url>https://www.redfin.com/news/share-of-homes-affordable-2022/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mrkeen</author><text>&amp;gt; All else being equal, we would expect 50% of homes to be unaffordable to a median buyer.&lt;p&gt;Sounded reasonable on first and second reading.  But now I question why.  Would 50% of avocados be unaffordable to the median buyer?  Would 50% of private jets?</text></item><item><author>throwaway09223</author><text>There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics - Twain&lt;p&gt;Key observations:&lt;p&gt;* All else being equal, we would expect 50% of homes to be unaffordable to a median buyer. This is the reasonable base figure (not zero). We would expect 2 in 5 if everyone were buying homes they could properly afford.&lt;p&gt;* But they&amp;#x27;re comparing median &lt;i&gt;county&lt;/i&gt; incomes to homes in a &lt;i&gt;metro area&lt;/i&gt;. For example they call out Boise, ID but use income from Ada county (already 20% lower!). This issue alone could account for the difference.&lt;p&gt;* There is also an issue of counting homes for sale, vs homes in general. If more expensive homes are sold more often (or, are listed for sale longer - say years - because they&amp;#x27;re unique) then we will see a skew towards more expensive homes being listed more frequently. It won&amp;#x27;t accurately represent the actual underlying home inventory.&lt;p&gt;I recommend not reading too much into these numbers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>notahacker</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d argue that more than 50% should be affordable to a median &lt;i&gt;buyer&lt;/i&gt;, on the basis that not everyone lives in the most expensive house they can possibly afford, and in the middle of the house pricing range there are multiple homes available at any given price.&lt;p&gt;Of course, there&amp;#x27;s also a large set of people who cannot afford to be buyers [in areas suitable for them to live] for various reasons and this median income dataset includes them. Not entirely sure they&amp;#x27;ve used median household income and not median individual income either</text></comment>
<story><title>There Were Half As Many Affordable Homes For Sale In 2022 As There Were In 2021</title><url>https://www.redfin.com/news/share-of-homes-affordable-2022/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mrkeen</author><text>&amp;gt; All else being equal, we would expect 50% of homes to be unaffordable to a median buyer.&lt;p&gt;Sounded reasonable on first and second reading.  But now I question why.  Would 50% of avocados be unaffordable to the median buyer?  Would 50% of private jets?</text></item><item><author>throwaway09223</author><text>There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics - Twain&lt;p&gt;Key observations:&lt;p&gt;* All else being equal, we would expect 50% of homes to be unaffordable to a median buyer. This is the reasonable base figure (not zero). We would expect 2 in 5 if everyone were buying homes they could properly afford.&lt;p&gt;* But they&amp;#x27;re comparing median &lt;i&gt;county&lt;/i&gt; incomes to homes in a &lt;i&gt;metro area&lt;/i&gt;. For example they call out Boise, ID but use income from Ada county (already 20% lower!). This issue alone could account for the difference.&lt;p&gt;* There is also an issue of counting homes for sale, vs homes in general. If more expensive homes are sold more often (or, are listed for sale longer - say years - because they&amp;#x27;re unique) then we will see a skew towards more expensive homes being listed more frequently. It won&amp;#x27;t accurately represent the actual underlying home inventory.&lt;p&gt;I recommend not reading too much into these numbers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lifeisstillgood</author><text>Good point.  I think the answer is that the definition of market is ... flexible.  Avocados are a commodity and cheap enough that yeah everyone in US can afford one.  Not true for global population living on a dollar a day....&lt;p&gt;Houses are probably  more like a car market - it&amp;#x27;s designed to cover &lt;i&gt;everyone&lt;/i&gt;, and so there is a percentage that is unaffordable - and that I think is the real point - the orignal article kind of assumes all houses should be affordable - but that&amp;#x27;s not true. The OP argues that only 50 % are affordable - that&amp;#x27;s kind of a guesstimate and  think the percentage is more likely similar for cars - not sure what it is but let&amp;#x27;s guess 80%.&lt;p&gt;Add in fact that affordability is defined so ways - percentage of incame and will someone give you mortgage and most of the disagreements go away</text></comment>