Classic MSM mis-reporting
(www.cbsnews.com)
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Or should I say "false reporting". They used data from 575 U.S. counties as their basis for saying "houses are unaffordable in 99% of the country". There are ~3,143 counties in the U.S.
I spent a decade in mortgage lending and only 1 year saw rates below 7%. My first house I had to take a 15-year mortgage to get a rate below 10%. My parents had a 16% interest rate on one of their houses. The story should be that people want more than they can afford today. Down payments are only 3% so that whole thing about not being able to save up a down payment is no different than the last 50 or more years.
We built in 1991. We had a 10 % down payment. We had saved and bought property to satisfy that. Our interest rate was 8.5% but we had to carry PMI insurance for the first couple of years. We only thought we had it good. I would never borrow under those conditions again but we were young and dumb.
Those were the conditions from the Carter years with rates of 22% to the mid 90's when they came down to the 7+% rates. Many people didn't buy in those years and later felt left out because they had no home equity to buy the next home. Young adults today claim that Boomers had some advantage that they don't have in this generation.