Housing supply, affordability gap remain top of mind for potential homebuyers

Households earning $75,000 a year can only afford 21.2% of all home listings, according to the National Association of Realtors and Realtor.com.

In the 2025 Housing Affordability & Supply report released Thursday, NAR officials said that America’s housing affordability gap persists with less than one-fourth of all For Sale home listings economically feasible for potential buyers making $75,000 annually. The report analyzes the shortage of affordable homes across different income levels in the current U.S. housing market and provides a real-time, income-specific snapshot of housing affordability, examining what home buyers at various income levels can afford based on standard lending criteria, officials said.

While noticeably decreased from pre-pandemic levels, For Sale housing inventory increased almost 20% nationwide in March. The gain is good news, said NAR representatives.

“The housing market is at a turning point,” said Nadia Evangelou, NAR senior economist and director of real estate research. “More homes are hitting the market, and it’s encouraging to see the greatest housing-supply gains among middle-income home buyers.”

The NAR report states that while households earning $75,000 a year experienced a slight improvement in accessibility to home listings between March 2025 (21.2%) and March 2024 (20.8%), the largest gain of any income group, they have less than half of the access to affordable homes than they had before the pandemic, when nearly 49% of listings were accessible.

NAR officials state that in a balanced housing market — where listings are aligned with what households at various income levels can afford — these home buyers would need access to 48.1% of listings. To reach that threshold, the market needs nearly 416,000 more listings priced at or below $255,000.

“Shoppers see more homes for sale today than one year ago, and encouragingly, many of these homes have been added at moderate income price points,” said Danielle Hale, Realtor.com chief economist. “But as this report shows, we still don’t have an abundance of homes that are affordable to low- and moderate-income households, and the progress that we’ve seen is not happening everywhere. It’s been concentrated in the Midwest and the South.”

“For many first-time home buyers, navigating the current housing market still feels like window shopping,” added Evangelou. “Listing prices don’t match first-time home buyers’ budgets. If the promising trend of building smaller homes continues, that could be a meaningful step toward easing the housing affordability gap for more buyers.”