Nationwide housing affordability improves in third quarter
Lower interest rates helped make homes more affordable to median-income families even as house prices continued to inch up in metro areas across the country in the third quarter, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI), released recently.
Nationwide, 74.1 percent of all homes sold in this year's third quarter were affordable to families earning the U.S. median income of $65,000. This was up slightly from the 73.8 percent of homes sold that were affordable to median-income earners in the second quarter.