Least-Affordable and Most-Affordable Counties

In addition to its usual, region-level classification of counties, the HBGI is featuring for Q2 2021 a new segmentation of the housing market based on measures of housing affordability using the ratio of the median value of all owner-occupied housing units in a U.S. county, relative to the median income of all residents in that county, as reported in the 2019 5-year American Community Survey. The housing market is then delineated into five submarkets of varying affordability, with each submarket defined as a quintile of all U.S. counties’ price-to-Income ratios.

Total population for the least-affordable counties: 161 million; 49.9% of total U.S. population

Total population for the most-affordable counties: 9 million; 2.8% of total U.S. population

We observed the following in the least-affordable counties (Top Price-to-Income quintile):

  • 47.6% of single-family construction for 2Q21
  • 11.1% single-family quarterly growth rate for the 2Q21
  • 46.3% single-family year-over-year growth rate (2Q21 vs 2Q20)
  • 25.8% single-family 4-quarter MA of the year-over-year growth rate

And in the most-affordable counties (Bottom Price-to-Income quintile):

  • 0.7% of single-family construction for 2Q21
  • 43.9% single-family quarterly growth rate for the 2Q21
  • 29.9% single-family year-over-year growth rate (2Q21 vs 2Q20)
  • 22.4% single-family 4-quarter MA of the year-over-year growth rate

In multifamily, the trends in the least-affordable counties (Top Price-to-Income quintile) were:

  • 68.0% of multifamily construction for 2Q21
  • 8.2% multifamily quarterly growth rate for the 2Q21
  • 27.0% multifamily year-over year growth rate (2Q21 vs 2Q20)
  • 4.0% multifamily 4-quarter MA of the year-over-year growth rate

And in the quintile for the most-affordable counties (Bottom Price-to-Income quintile):

  • 0.4% of multifamily construction for 2Q21
  • 18.3% multifamily quarterly growth rate for the 2Q21
  • 88.9% multifamily year-over year growth rate (2Q21 vs 2Q20)
  • 48.3% multifamily 4-quarter MA of the year-over-year growth rate