The latest housing numbers offer a paradox: more homes on the market, yet fewer people able to buy them. It’s a snapshot of a broken system—one that reveals the limitations of traditional housing narratives and underscores a deeper, structural crisis in the U.S. housing market.
According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales in May ticked up slightly—0.8% from the month prior—but the broader trend remains grim. It was the weakest May showing since 2009, a time when the housing market was still staggering from the subprime crash. What’s holding the market back this time isn’t overleveraged borrowers or toxic assets—it’s affordability.
The median home price in the U.S. hit $422,800 in May, a record for that month. Home prices have risen 52% since 2019, while wages have grown just 30%. Combine that with mortgage rates hovering near 7%, and you get a market that’s functionally closed to a growing number of Americans. The cost to afford a typical home with a 20% down payment now requires an income of nearly $92,000 per year. That’s a barrier that shuts out not only the working poor, but also much of the middle class.
We often talk about the housing crisis as a supply problem—and to be clear, it still is. But these latest figures suggest another angle that deserves more attention: the growing decoupling between housing availability and housing accessibility. There may be more homes on the market now, but that doesn’t mean they are meaningfully available to most Americans. In fact, as affordability worsens, the inventory growth may reflect properties sitting longer on the market, rather than an actual increase in successful transactions.
This paradox—more homes, fewer buyers—signals that we’re not just facing a housing supply shortage. We’re confronting a housing affordability collapse. And the causes run deeper than mortgage rates or inflation. For decades, our housing policy has prioritized wealth-building through homeownership without ensuring equitable access to that pathway. Zoning laws, limited multi-family development, and resistance to density have made starter homes an endangered species in many cities. The result is a rigid system where supply can’t adjust quickly enough to meet demand, especially for working-class buyers.
What’s worse, the current policy conversation often fails to account for who is being left behind. First-time buyers—disproportionately younger, less wealthy, and more diverse—made up just 30% of sales in May, far below the historical norm of 40%. These are not people asking for handouts. They are the backbone of the future housing market, locked out at a time when wages can’t keep up and rents offer no reprieve.
The good news is that some rebalancing may be underway. Homes are sitting longer on the market, price growth has slowed, and sellers are starting to offer concessions. Builders are finally responding by lowering prices and offering rate buydowns. But these shifts alone won’t fix the long-term affordability gap.
We need a renewed focus on aggressive policy solutions that tackle both the supply and cost sides of the housing equation. That means upzoning single-family neighborhoods to allow for duplexes and triplexes. It means offering targeted down payment assistance for first-generation buyers. And it means pushing back on local and state policies that prioritize property values over housing access.
The deeper lesson from May’s housing data is that the American dream of homeownership is slipping further out of reach—not because homes don’t exist, but because they are no longer affordable. A market with more inventory but fewer reachable homes is not a sign of health. It’s a warning. And if policymakers fail to treat affordability as seriously as they do supply, the consequences will be long-lasting.
The housing crisis isn’t just about how many homes we build. It’s about who can afford to live in them. Until that becomes the central focus, no amount of new listings will solve the problem.
From article: “The housing crisis isn’t just about how many homes we build. It’s about who can afford to live in them. Until that becomes the central focus, no amount of new listings will solve the problem.”
Up until “today”, you were claiming that there’s insufficient supply. So now that supply has increased (more houses on the market – and not necessarily “new” housing), the argument shifts again.
What you’re referring to is a gap between inflation vs. income (and assets) – nothing to do with housing costs in particular. At least, not any more than the rising cost of food, healthcare, gasoline, insurance, taxes, etc. (In fact, those things don’t generally decrease in price – unlike housing.)
But the statistics you cite (e.g., a drop in the percentage of first time buyers) are not an indicator of concern in the first place. Nor is the increasing age of first-time buyers.