6 INNOVATIVE WAYS TO BUY A HOUSE
A gallon of unleaded gas costs $1.11 more than it did last year, and a pound of ground beef now goes for an extra 65¢. But there are few places where Americans are feeling inflation rates as acutely as the U.S. housing market: from December 2020 to December 2021, the median price of a home shot up by nearly $50,000.
There are lots of reasons for this uptick, but one major factor is the nationwide shortage of affordable housing—a problem borne of exclusionary local land-use rules, a slump in new construction because of supply-chain issues and labor shortages, and COVID-19, which drove a surge in demand among newly remote workers.
It’s more than just a housing problem. Since homeownership is the best way to accrue wealth over a lifetime, it’s a prosperity issue too. U.S. homeowners have, on average, 40 times as much wealth as renters, per the Federal Reserve.
As traditional routes to homeownership become closed off, here are six ways that communities and companies are helping people buy a home.
