In March this year, it would have taken an average household income of $94,000 a year to buy a starter home in the United States, a Realtor.com report calculated. One month later, a report from the same company finds that the household would need to make $114,000 manually to buy a median-priced home.
“That’s up 70.1% from $67,000 just six years ago,” the company’s April Housing Trends report noted, as consumers needed to have a $47,000 increase in income since 2019 to afford one.
In some cities, especially in California, the household income required is far higher. In the San Jose metro, it has shot up 54.3% since 2019 to $370,069. In Los Angeles, the baseline is $315,892, up 86% in the period. San Francisco, San Diego, and Sacramento have seen income requirements zoom up by amounts ranging from 30.5% to 73.4%. In two other Western metros, Seattle and Denver, this has climbed to $206,777 (up 55%) and $158,462 (up 42%), respectively.
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The East coast has not been immune. In Boston, it now takes an annual income of $232,000 (up 82%) to buy a median house, while in New York the requirement is $208,687 (up 69%) and in Washington, DC it is $164,682 (up 59%).
To make a deal, sellers are having to adjust their prices, and buyers are gaining a little leverage, the report noted. New listings nationwide rose 8.2% to 471,188 from March to April and 9.2% year-over-year. The median listing price of a home in April this year was $431,250, up 1.5% from the previous month and 0.3% higher than in April last year.
However, among all active listings, 18% came with price reductions, 2.5 percentage points more than in April 2024.
After an apparent improvement in 4Q 2024, pending home sales have decreased in every month of 2025, the report found. In April, they dipped 3.2% — likely because of climbing mortgage rates that are holding buyers back, according to the report.
Another report from Redfin painted a fairly similar picture of the housing market it described as “lackluster.” Mortgage purchase applications were down 6% month-over-month. Pending home sales fell, while the total number of homes for sale rose 13.7%. The average sale to list-price ratio was 98.9%, down from 99.3% year-over-year.
It said record-high housing costs were one factor, with monthly median payments at an all-time high of $2,780. In addition, widespread economic instability deterred home buyers.
While the general thrust of both reports was similarly cautious, there were some differences in their data.
Redfin estimated new listings rose 6.1% year-over-year, lower than Realtor.com’s figure of 9.2%.
The median asking price of a home was $429,700, up 6.1% year-over-year, according to Redfin, while the median sale price in April was $388,475. Realtor.com’s median asking price was $431,250, up 0.3% annually.
Homes remained on the market for 50 days, three days less than in March but four days longer than in April 2024, Realtor.com reported. Redfin reported homes on the market for a median of 39 days.
Furthermore, Redfin noted that buyers are becoming more picky about what they want in a house. “When the market was hotter, those homes would fly off the shelves, despite not checking every single box,” one agent said.
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