U.S. households earning $75,000 a year can afford only 21.2 percent of the homes listed for sale in March 2025, up slightly from 20.8 percent a year ago and demonstrating that the nation’s housing affordability gap persists, according to the National Association of Realtors’ Housing Affordability & Supply report.
The report analyzes the shortage of affordable homes across different income levels in the current U.S. housing market. It provides a real-time, income-specific snapshot of housing affordability, examining what homebuyers at various income levels can afford based on standard lending criteria.
For-sale housing inventory increased nearly 20 percent nationwide in March 2025 from one year earlier, and while this gain marks progress, it remains far from pre-pandemic conditions.
“The housing market is at a turning point,” said Nadia Evangelou, NAR senior economist and director of real estate research. “More homes are hitting the market, and it’s encouraging to see the greatest housing-supply gains among middle-income homebuyers.”
While households earning $75,000 a year experienced a slight improvement in accessibility to home listings between March 2025 (21.2 percent) and March 2024 (20.8 percent), the largest gain of any income group, they have less than half of the access to affordable homes than they had before the pandemic, when nearly 49 percent of listings were accessible. In a balanced housing market — where listings are aligned with what households at various income levels can afford — these homebuyers would need access to 48.1 percent of listings. To reach that threshold, the market needs nearly 416,000 more listings priced at or below $255,000.
Households that earn $100,000 annually are in a similar situation. They can currently afford 37.1 percent of home listings, up slightly from 36.9 percent in March 2024. That is far below the 64.7 percent they could afford in 2019 and well below the 60.7 percent target for market balance. This group faces a shortage of nearly 364,000 home listings priced under $340,000.
A household earning $50,000 annually can only afford 8.7 percent of home listings today, down from 9.4 percent one year earlier. These low-income households represent one in three households, and in a balanced housing market, they should be able to afford to buy one in three listings. For balance, about 367,000 listings at a maximum price of $170,000 are vital.
Meanwhile, higher-income households have near-total access to the housing market. Homebuyers earning $250,000 or more can afford at least 80 percent of home listings.
“Shoppers see more homes for sale today than one year ago, and encouragingly, many of these homes have been added at moderate income price points,” said Danielle Hale, Realtor.com chief economist. “But as this report shows, we still don’t have an abundance of homes that are affordable to low- and moderate-income households, and the progress that we’ve seen is not happening everywhere. It’s been concentrated in the Midwest and the South.”
As of March 2025, 30 percent of the 100 largest metropolitan areas are classified as “areas getting closer to balance,” where the availability of affordable homes improved significantly over the past year and is relatively strong across income levels. Substantial progress has been made in markets that were previously considered unaffordable, with the affordable home listings improving by more than 5 percent within the past year. These areas now have housing affordability gaps that are less than 10 percentage points below a balanced housing market.
“For many first-time homebuyers, navigating the current housing market still feels like window shopping,” added Evangelou. “Listing prices don’t match first-time homebuyers’ budgets. If the promising trend of building smaller homes continues, that could be a meaningful step toward easing the housing affordability gap for more buyers.”
A sizable slice (44 percent) of the 100 largest metropolitan areas is classified as “areas stuck in the middle,” where housing supply and demand are misaligned but not at crisis levels. Some markets made small-but-meaningful gains in one year — adding a modest number of affordable listings — but gains have not been substantial enough to shift the market.
Seattle and Washington, D.C., experienced moderate increases in the share of homes considered affordable over the past year, with an average rise of 4 percentage points. While that marks progress, both cities still face some of the largest affordability gaps in the country, requiring households to earn more than $150,000 a year just to afford half the homes on the market. In contrast, Austin, Texas; Salt Lake City; and Denver made substantial progress, boosting the share of affordable listings by an average of 20 percentage points. Notably, San Francisco has also seen very significant improvement, with the supply of affordable listings surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
Twenty-six percent of the 100 largest metro areas are classified as “areas falling further behind,” where the gap from a balanced housing market continues to widen, worsening housing affordability. In these metropolitan areas, the availability of affordable listings has either declined over the past year or remains more than 20 percentage points below what is considered a balanced housing market, highlighting a troubling trend in housing accessibility.