Why Are Houses So Expensive?

In 2021, the typical home cost about $1,223 a month. Today it's about $2,294. The house barely changed. Houses aren't selling. So why are prices still so high? CHAPTERS 0:00 Your paycheck vs. the price tag 0:55 The cheap decade 2:47 The music stops 4:04 Locked in 5:49 Who got a chair? 7:25 How chairs free up KEY NUMBERS 30-year fixed mortgage rate: 7.32% (Oct 22, 2026); record low 2.65% (Jan 2021) (Freddie Mac PMMS) Monthly principal and interest on the median home, 20% down: about $1,223 (Dec 2021, 3.10%) vs. about $2,294 (Oct 2026, 7.32%) (own calculation from NAR prices and Freddie Mac rates) Median existing-home price, Sep 2026: $417,500 (NAR) First-time buyers: 21% of purchases, median age 40, both record highs/lows (NAR, 2025 profile) About half of U.S. mortgages still carry a rate under 4% (Harvard JCHS, 2026) SOURCES Freddie Mac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, weekly series, data through Oct 22, 2026 U.S. Census Bureau (median household income, 2025; American Community Survey 2020-2024, homes owned free and clear) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, usual weekly earnings, Q3 2026 National Association of Realtors (NAR): existing-home sales, Sep 2026; Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 2025 Redfin: sellers vs. buyers report (Oct 2026) and income needed to buy (2026) Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, State of the Nation's Housing 2026 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, Public Law 119-101 (investor purchase limits) FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis): housing starts, median sales price ARCHIVE & DATA Mortgage-rate chart redrawn from Freddie Mac PMMS data, values unchanged (information used with attribution, (c) 2026 Freddie Mac) Photo: Jonas Dovydenas / U.S. National Archives (Documerica), 1973, public domain Photo: Gottscho-Schleisner Collection / Library of Congress, 1958, public domain Photo: respres / Flickr (CC BY 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/respres... Photo: Matthew N. Stroller / Flickr (CC BY 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/stoller... MUSIC & SOUND Gymnopedie No 1, Carefree, Meditation Impromptu 01 Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... SFX: Mixkit (mixkit.co), Mixkit Sound Effects Free License Market figures are as of October 2026 (mortgage rates: Freddie Mac PMMS of Oct 22, 2026; sales data: Sep 2026).