Home affordability improved in many places throughout the nation during the third quarter, including in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and San Diego.
However, ATTOM Data Solutions’ Q3 2017 U.S. Home Affordability Index found that home affordability was worse than one year ago in an overwhelming majority of the counties it analyzed.
Compared with the second quarter of 2017, home affordability improved in 243 of the 406 counties analyzed in the report. Year-over-year, home affordability was worse in 79 percent of the counties examined, the index found.
For the quarter, the index found that homes were less affordable in 40 percent of the 406 counties analyzed, including Wayne County (Detroit); Middlesex County (Boston); and New York City-area counties Suffolk, Bronx and Westchester.
“Falling interest rates in the third quarter provided enough of a cushion to counteract rising home prices in most U.S. markets and provide at least some temporary relief for the home affordability crunch,” ATTOM Data Solutions Senior Vice President Daren Blomquist said in a release.
“More sustainable relief for the affordability crunch, however, will need to be some combination of slowing home price appreciation and accelerating wage growth,” Blomquist added. “Wage growth is outpacing home price growth in about half of all local markets so far this year, an indication that a more sustainable affordability pattern is taking shape in more local markets.”
ATTOM said the national home affordability index was 100 in the third quarter of 2017, the lowest national affordability index since the third quarter of 2008, when the index was 86.