From the Philly Inquirer:
The Philly area doesn’t have enough homes available for low- and middle-income buyers
More than one million homes nationwide were available for sale in late April. But high prices mean that what’s out there doesn’t match what people at various income levels can afford, according to a new report from the nation’s Realtors.
Basically, home listings affordable for middle- and lower-income households are missing. The country needs more homes that households at all income levels can buy to chip away at the problems of low affordability and low housing supply, according to a report that the National Association of Realtors and Realtor.com released Thursday.
“Ongoing high housing costs and the scarcity of available homes continues to present budget challenges for many prospective buyers, and it’s likely keeping some buyers in the rental marketor on the sidelines and delaying their purchase until conditions improve,” Danielle Hale, Realtor.com’s chief economist, said in a statement.
The report breaks down the number of homes missing for each income level by comparing the number of listings available in April to the number that would need to be available to accommodate buyers. Realtors said they hope local and federal governments can use their analysis to ease the twin problems of affordability and housing supply.
…
“Middle-income buyers face the largest shortage of homes among all income groups, making it even harder for them to build wealth through home ownership,” Nadia Evangelou, senior economist and director of real estate research at the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement.
In the Philadelphia metropolitan area, households making $50,000 faced the largest shortage of available home listings. In April, 3,440 listings affordable to buyers with this income were missing, according to the report. These households should be able to afford 32% of listings, but they were only able to afford 13%.