Mortgage Affordability Calculator: Price-to-Income Ratio, 1963–2025
The price-to-income ratio is the single cleanest answer to “is housing getting more or less affordable?” It divides the median sale price of a US home by the median household's income, so a rising ratio means homes are outpacing pay, whatever the rate does. The US ratio now stands at 4.7x in 2025, from 4.9x the year before.
This page pairs that ratio with a calculator wired to the live numbers — the latest 30-year mortgage average (7.24%) and its spread over the 10-year Treasury (2.26 percentage points) — so you can see your own payment, and whether it fits the median income, rather than trust a rule of thumb.
US price-to-income ratio by year, 1963–2025
| Year | Annual average | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 (YTD) | 4.7x | −0.2 pp |
| 2024 | 4.9x | −0.1 pp |
| 2023 | 5.0x | −0.3 pp |
| 2022 | 5.3x | +0.7 pp |
| 2021 | 4.6x | +0.7 pp |
| 2020 | 3.9x | +0.1 pp |
| 2019 | 3.8x | −0.3 pp |
| 2018 | 4.1x | 0.0 pp |
| 2017 | 4.1x | +0.1 pp |
| 2016 | 4.0x | +0.1 pp |
| 2015 | 3.9x | −0.1 pp |
| 2014 | 4.0x | +0.3 pp |
| 2013 | 3.7x | +0.2 pp |
| 2012 | 3.5x | +0.2 pp |
| 2011 | 3.3x | +0.1 pp |
| 2010 | 3.2x | +0.2 pp |
| 2009 | 3.0x | −0.2 pp |
| 2008 | 3.2x | −0.1 pp |
| 2007 | 3.3x | 0.0 pp |
| 2006 | 3.3x | +0.1 pp |
| 2005 | 3.2x | +0.2 pp |
| 2004 | 3.0x | +0.3 pp |
| 2003 | 2.7x | +0.1 pp |
| 2002 | 2.6x | +0.2 pp |
| 2001 | 2.4x | +0.1 pp |
| 2000 | 2.3x | +0.1 pp |
| 1999 | 2.2x | +0.1 pp |
| 1998 | 2.1x | 0.0 pp |
| 1997 | 2.1x | 0.0 pp |
| 1996 | 2.1x | +0.1 pp |
| 1995 | 2.0x | 0.0 pp |
| 1994 | 2.0x | 0.0 pp |
| 1993 | 2.0x | +0.1 pp |
| 1992 | 1.9x | +0.1 pp |
| 1991 | 1.8x | 0.0 pp |
| 1990 | 1.8x | 0.0 pp |
| 1989 | 1.8x | +0.1 pp |
| 1988 | 1.7x | +0.1 pp |
| 1987 | 1.6x | +0.2 pp |
| 1986 | 1.4x | +0.1 pp |
| 1985 | 1.3x | 0.0 pp |
| 1984 | 1.3x | — |
Try your numbers
Enter a home price, your down payment, the rate you are being offered and the loan term. The payment is a standard amortising calculation; the “share of median income” line compares the annual payment to the latest real median household income of 87k. Figures below 25% are generally considered comfortable, above 31% stressed.
What the ratio shows
The ratio peaked during the housing bubble, and again in 2022. The highest reading on record is 5.3x in 2022; the lowest is 1.3x in 1984. Today's 4.7x sits well above the long-run average, which is why the same dollar of income buys far less house than it did a generation ago.
Price and income tell different stories than the rate. The mortgage rate changes the monthly cost of a given house, but the price-to-income ratio changes what a house costs in the first place. A buyer who watches only rates misses the half of affordability that is set in the housing market, not the bond market.
Regional dispersion is wide. Over the last year the national FHFA house price index rose 3.0%, but California moved 0.9%, Texas 1.6% and Florida 1.4% — the same mortgage rate buys very different amounts of house depending on where you buy. That is why the calculator below asks you to judge the payment against your own income, not a national average.
Frequently asked questions
What is the price-to-income ratio for US housing?
The national median sale price divided by the real median household income was 4.7x in 2025 — a fall from 4.9x the prior year. The record high is 5.3x in 2022.
How much house can I afford?
A common rule is that the monthly payment should stay under about 28% of gross income. With the median home at $393k and a 7.24% 30-year rate, the principal-and-interest payment runs near a quarter of the median income before tax, insurance and maintenance — use the calculator above with your own numbers.
Do state house prices move together?
No. Over the last year the national FHFA index rose 3.0%, but California rose 0.9%, Texas 1.6% and Florida 1.4%. The same rate buys very different amounts of house by state, which is why national averages are a poor fit for a local decision.
Source and method
All figures on this page are computed at build time from the Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States series (FRED identifier MSPUS) published by the US Census Bureau and distributed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Annual figures are averages of the underlying observations; growth and inflation rates are year-over-year changes of those annual averages. Where a year is incomplete the figure is labelled YTD and the number of observations behind it is shown in the table.
Data through Q3 2026. Page rebuilt 2026-11-04. The snapshot used here is the series as published on the date above. Source agencies revise these series after first publication — benchmark revisions to GDP, seasonal-factor revisions to CPI, and the usual two monthly revisions to retail sales — so a figure here can differ from the latest vintage at the source without either being wrong. The link below always shows the current vintage. Raw series: FRED — Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States. Chart and table code licensed CC BY 4.0 — reuse freely with attribution to CapitalWire. Spotted an error? Tell us — we correct and date the change.
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APA
CapitalWire. (2026). Mortgage Affordability Calculator: Price-to-Income Ratio, 1963–2025. Retrieved 2026-11-04, from https://infornkn.com/data/mortgage-affordability/BibTeX
@misc{capitalwiremortgage_affordability,
title = {Mortgage Affordability Calculator: Price-to-Income Ratio, 1963–2025},
author = {{CapitalWire}},
year = {2026},
note = {Data: US Census Bureau via FRED, series MSPUS},
url = {https://infornkn.com/data/mortgage-affordability/}
}HTML link
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