Rentals and Homes Run Neck and Neck in Much of U.S.

Median home prices increased more than average rents and average wages in 88 percent of ATTOM’s 2022 Rental Affordability Report. However, owning a median-priced home is sometimes more affordable than the average rent on a three-bedroom property in 666 of the 1,154 U.S. counties analyzed for the report.

The analysis incorporated recently released fair-market rent data for 2022 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and public-record sales-deed data from ATTOM in 1,154 U.S. counties with sufficient single-family home sales data.

This follows another year when the benefits of rising wages and super-low mortgage rates counteracted the effects of spiking U.S. home prices. Prices have shot up more than 10 percent in most of the country in the past year as a glut of homebuyers, partly spurred by the ongoing pandemic, chase a tight supply of homes for sale. But average wages have increased about 8 percent while interest rates have hovered around 3 percent.