Zillow shows residents living in Orange County lose about half their income paying their rent or mortgage to live in the least affordable housing market in the U.S., see Orange County Zillow.
Everything is still down. The direction of the housing industry can be seen in the direction of median household incomes, labor force participation and wage growth — all over which are down as you can see in this graph.
Housing activity remains modest with continued declines in new home purchases juxtaposed with several months of improvement in existing home sales. Underlying the month-to-month volatility remains the inadequate momentum in the labor market; consumers remain restrained by lackluster income and job creation.
All this and mortgage rates have been falling so far this year, with the latest conforming 30-year fixed rate down to 4.24% from 4.57% a year ago. Low mortgage rates are not forcing the housing market up. Darn, I thought things were picking up.
