By one standard measure, owning a home has never been more out of reach for Americans as it is today. This chart shows the ratio of home prices to median household income, a common measure of home affordability.

Historically, a house typically costs about five times the homebuyer’s annual income. It now costs roughly seven to eight times that much.

This is a good news/bad news story – as we’ve noted before. Because a house is an asset, for homeowners a rising home value means more equity. It can be like a stock rising in value. But the downside of high home prices is that young families can’t afford them. Why the spike under Biden? First, interest rates have more than doubled from 3% when Trump left office to 7% now. Second, family incomes in real terms aren’t keeping pace with housing or overall inflation.

What is for sure is that Bidenomics has not been good for expanding homeownership.