What do you get after mortgage rates more than double after a pandemic-fueled buying boom sent home prices soaring? A housing affordability crisis. This year, affordability was worse than during the housing bubble’s peak in 2006, and by some estimates, was the least affordable housing market since the 1980s, a decade marked by high inflation and even higher interest rates that peaked at 18%. The result is a year of frustration and hopelessness for buyers and renters.
Fortune revisited would-be buyers and current renters that we spoke to earlier in the year to see how they’ve fared since in the difficult housing market. Their struggles track the challenges many people are facing in achieving the American dream.
