Revision History
3 revisions for "Priced Out: How America's Housing Market Became a Wealth Machine for the Old and a Barrier for the Young"
The median U.S. home now costs 4.6 times the median household income, up from 2.3 in 2000. A 4-million-home supply deficit, mortgage rates that peaked at 7.8% in 2023, and zoning restrictions have created an affordability crisis that transfers wealth from young to old and widens racial inequality. While prices have declined 3.3% year-over-year and rates have fallen to 6.22%, the crisis persists because every solution—build more, regulate less, tax differently—threatens somebody's wealth.
The U.S. housing market has reached a state where the median home costs 4.6 times the median household income, 75% of households cannot afford a new median-priced home, and the average first-time buyer is now 40 years old. A supply deficit of over 4 million homes, mortgage rates above 6%, and contested policy debates over zoning, rent control, and investor purchases have created an affordability crisis with no consensus solution—one where every proposed fix threatens somebody's wealth or livelihood.
The median U.S. home now costs 4.8 times the median household income, far above the historical norm of 2.5–3.0, with mortgage rate increases since 2021 adding roughly $1,000 per month to a typical payment and pushing the qualifying income beyond what most American households earn. A shortage of 3.7 to 5.5 million housing units—driven by exclusionary zoning, a 439,000-worker construction labor gap, and material costs up 42% since the pandemic—has made the affordability crisis structural rather than cyclical, with the steepest consequences falling on Black Americans, younger adults, and lower-income households.