Data Lab: twenty years of housing affordability, one chart at a time
An interactive explainer tracing how the ratio of median price to median income moved across forty metropolitan areas.
- Median price-to-income ratios rose in thirty-seven of forty metro areas over twenty years.
- The steepest movement occurred between 2020 and 2023 rather than during the earlier boom.
- Three metros with sustained supply growth show flat or improving ratios.
Machine-generated from the reporting on this page and reviewed by an AMN editor before publication.
Across forty metropolitan areas over twenty years, the ratio of median home price to median household income rose in thirty-seven. That single number understates how differently the increase arrived in each place.
The steepest movement was not during the earlier boom but between 2020 and 2023, when the ratio in the median metro moved more in three years than in the preceding twelve.
Three metros run against the pattern. Each expanded permitted housing supply faster than household formation for at least eight consecutive years, and each shows a flat or improving ratio.
This explainer lets you isolate any metro, compare it against the national median, and decompose the movement into price and income components.
Methodology, sources and the full dataset are published alongside the piece.