Harvard report

“The median price of a new single‑family home in 2025 was $417,400.”

“home prices surged 54% in a compressed and almost hallucinatory run‑up from 2020 to 2022”

“median existing single‑family home in 2025 sold for nearly 5x the median household income—versus a ratio of 3.2x averaged throughout the 1990s.”

“Monthly mortgage payments on that median‑priced home, at roughly $2,420 ... were nearly double what they were at the end of 2020.”

“Just 16% of renter households earned the $120,800 minimum required to afford that home, Harvard calculates.”

“Aggregate homeowner equity reached $34 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2025, up 88% and what Harvard dubbed an “astounding” $16 trillion since 2019.”

“The average homeowner held about $295,000 in home equity.”

“children of homeowner parents who extracted equity accumulated roughly one-third more housing wealth by age 30 than children of renters.”

“The homeownership rate for households under 35 has fallen to 37%, down from 39% in 2022.”

“The Black‑white homeownership gap, at 28.7 percentage points, now exceeds the gap recorded in 1995.”

“The United States added 116,000 jobs in 2025—the smallest annual gain in a non‑recession year since 2003.”

“Student loan delinquency rates surged from under 1% in late 2024 to 10% by the end of 2025 after pandemic‑era payment relief ended.”

“Household growth slowed for the third consecutive year, to 1.1 million in 2025 from an annual average of 2.0 million in 2020 and 2021.”

“The share of Americans who moved in the prior year fell to a record low of 11.2%.”

“Net international migration fell from 2.7 million in 2024 to 1.3 million in 2025.”