Today’s housing market is the least affordable and least accessible it’s been in decades as mortgage rates reached 8% this fall and home prices continue to rise. Yet, every day homes are still sold as new buyers shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a down payment and lock into historically high mortgage payments. So just how bad is affordability? Zillow crunched some numbers and says it will take you a remarkably long time to break even if you buy a house under these market conditions.
Many do this not because they're thrilled at the prospect to buy into such unaffordable conditions, but to bolster their financial stability for the future. In other words, the sooner they can become a homeowner and start building equity in their starter home, the sooner they can break even on that investment and eventually afford something better. But Zillow's analysis shows that things have gotten so out of whack in the housing market, it’s taking much longer than normal for owners to be able to sell their homes for a profit.
