The Denver Post reports that first-time homebuyers are struggling to afford homes as prices rise faster than wages.
In the seven years since the housing crash ended, home values in more than three-quarters of U.S. metro areas have climbed faster than incomes, according to an Associated Press analysis of real estate industry data provided by CoreLogic.
The high cost of home ownership is also putting extreme pressure on 20- and 30-somethings as they try to balance mortgage payments, student loans, child care and their careers.
A Redfin analysis found these buyers are leaving too-hot-to-touch big-city markets—among them, San Francisco and Seattle, where the tech boom has sent housing prices into the stratosphere. The brokerage found that many millennials are instead buying in more reasonable priced neighborhoods around places like Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, and Raleigh, North Carolina. That, in turn, is driving up housing prices in those communities.
