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Most Americans Can't Afford New Homes

Most Americans Can't Afford New Homes

Most Americans can’t afford a new home.

A new analysis from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) shows that 65% of U.S. households are priced out of newly built homes, based on current prices and mortgage rates.

In some parts of the country, the situation is even more extreme. More than 80% of households can’t afford a new home, highlighting how widespread the affordability gap has become.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Dorosthy Neufeld, shows where Americans are being priced out and where barriers to homeownership are highest.

Ranked: Where Americans Are Most Priced Out of New Homes

At the extreme end, buying a new home is nearly out of reach. In New Hampshire, 83.4% of households are priced out of a new median-priced home.

In total, 11 states have at least 80% of households locked out.

This table shows the share of households priced out of new homes by state in 2026. A household is considered “priced out” if total housing costs—principal, interest, taxes, and insurance—exceed 28% of income, based on median new home prices and a 6% mortgage rate.

State % of Households
Priced Out of New Homes Median New Home Price Income Needed to Qualify New Hampshire 83.4% $677,982 $211,080 Hawaii 83.0% $884,781 $234,818 Maine 82.7% $548,493 $160,714 Alaska 82.2% $627,077 $188,313 Connecticut 81.8% $696,752 $224,811 Wyoming 81.8% $580,627 $164,982 Montana 81.5% $495,610 $141,997 Oregon 81.0% $608,135 $173,717 New York 80.5% $656,108 $204,163 Vermont 80.1% $580,627 $181,064 Pennsylvania 80.0% $528,370 $160,900 Massachusetts 79.8% $836,236 $246,370 Wisconsin 77.3% $485,449 $149,085 Ohio 76.5% $443,646 $137,310 Washington 76.1% $649,812 $185,213 Colorado 75.1% $644,149 $179,928 Kansas 73.4% $401,237 $128,372 Rhode Island 72.9% $578,724 $174,451 South Carolina 72.5% $421,098 $118,180 New Mexico 71.7% $362,847 $104,055 Illinois 71.3% $428,712 $143,374 Michigan 71.3% $371,503 $122,158 Kentucky 71.3% $398,741 $109,299 Florida 71.1% $429,644 $127,139 Indiana 70.7% $418,993 $123,219 District of Columbia 70.1% $836,441 $232,260 Iowa 70.0% $348,337 $120,598 Arkansas 70.0% $381,881 $100,780 Alabama 69.2% $375,944 $106,586 New Jersey 69.1% $527,069 $172,356 Utah 68.2% $531,151 $145,638 Tennessee 67.7% $399,580 $111,631 Oklahoma 67.6% $351,771 $107,846 Arizona 66.6% $446,796 $122,364 Missouri 66.6% $371,515 $111,332 Idaho 66.4% $430,280 $117,615 North Carolina 66.4% $394,058 $112,263 Louisiana 66.2% $318,728 $95,895 California 65.6% $545,892 $153,471 Nevada 65.5% $420,782 $115,555 West Virginia 64.8% $308,607 $88,071 Texas 64.5% $369,798 $117,131 Georgia 62.5% $374,579 $109,329 Minnesota 62.1% $402,209 $122,025 Nebraska 62.0% $328,603 $107,185 South Dakota 62.0% $346,894 $106,233 North Dakota 61.4% $382,451 $116,480 Mississippi 61.1% $266,837 $80,174 Virginia 58.9% $429,184 $122,542 Maryland 58.5% $432,949 $127,559 Delaware 56.0% $376,478 $104,282

While high-cost states like Hawaii and Massachusetts rank among the least affordable, others such as Maine and Wyoming show that affordability pressures are no longer limited to major metro areas.

Affordability Isn’t Just a Coastal Problem

The most striking takeaway is how universal the problem has become.

Even in lower-cost states like Mississippi ($267K) and West Virginia ($309K), a majority of households are still priced out new homes. While buyers need under $90,000 in income—compared to over $200,000 in the least affordable markets—that threshold remains out of reach for many.

In other words, moving to a cheaper state is no longer a reliable solution. Instead, the data points to a deeper issue, which is that incomes have not kept pace with rising housing costs across the country.

While existing homes can be more affordable than new construction, this data highlights a key constraint: much of the new housing supply entering the market is already out of reach for most households.

The Bigger Picture

As new home prices continue to outpace income growth, the gap between who can and can’t afford newly built homes is widening. That shift is reshaping where Americans live, how they build wealth, and whether homeownership is attainable at all.

If even the most affordable states are out of reach for most households looking at new homes, the question becomes harder to ignore: where can buyers realistically go next?

Learn More on the Voronoi App 

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on where wealth is moving in America.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/17/2026 - 08:45

Is A Future War Between The US And Europe Unavoidable?

Is A Future War Between The US And Europe Unavoidable?

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

For those who might have been out of the loop over the past few months, there is a war going on between the US and Europe. Largely, it’s western European governments that are the problem – They started the conflict, they continue to perpetuate the conflict, and they tend to cry victim when they suffer any consequences for it.

It’s clear that the European elites have a distaste for US policy. From anti-woke reforms and immigration restrictions to geopolitical interactions, when Americans voted en masse to remove the far-left Biden regime, Europe became an overnight enemy. I think it’s important to understand that the European leadership does do NOT view the Trump Administration as their primary threat. No, they view YOU as their primary threat.

American conservatives, nationalists, patriots, truth activists, etc. are the target of an international demonization campaign. And, as long as we hold sway in American politics, they will treat the US as a potential enemy.

Since 2014, Western European progressives (globalists) have been pursuing a multicultural blitzkrieg of their own respective populations. Open borders and mass immigration from largely Islamic countries became the political standard, with many European citizens suckered or shamed into compliance using two big lies:

Lie #1: Native Europeans are responsible for offering reparations to third worlders for centuries of “colonialism” and decades of war in the Middle East.

Lie #2: Mass immigration is vital to European economies because of cascading population decline and shrinking labor force.

For a decade this has been the methodology in Europe with increasingly horrific results (including a massive spike in sexual assaults and knife crimes).

To address the first lie, the vast majority of migrants entering Europe from the third world are not traveling from war torn countries. This narrative was a fabrication by liberals in Europe in order to grease the wheels for public support of open borders. Furthermore, the argument that western nations are somehow required to compensate the rest of the world for their geopolitical success is a fallacy.

We don’t owe anyone anything and we’re not required to take on immigrants for any reason, ever.

The second lie is much more complicated. Europe does not need immigrants to reinforce the economy, but what if they are useful for something else? An agenda which is not yet clear?

It has long been my position that the globalists in Europe intend on integrating into a wider opposition bloc, a coalition against nationalism, free markets, meritocracy, free democracy, etc. Evidence suggests that this coalition will include elements of Asia and their eyes on resource rich regions of Africa.

Russia is a wild card.

Europe’s leaders are ravenous, they want a greater war and they see Ukraine as the best opportunity. That said, this does not mean Russia is our friend.

I believe European leaders (much like leftists in the US) want the establishment of a “new world order” in which national borders are erased and green authoritarian socialism is enforced under a globally centralized bureaucracy. There are many ways to go about achieving this agenda.

For example, the globalists have tried implementing international climate change laws and carbon controls as a means to limit industry and dominate energy resources. I would argue that this plan has failed as it becomes more and more clear to the public that global warming science is mostly propaganda. The majority of the opposition to the carbon agenda has come from the US.

They tried medical tyranny, using pandemic hysteria through perpetual lockdowns and vaccine passports. This also failed, with twenty-two red states blocking the mandates. If they couldn’t get the US to comply, then the rest of the world would see that a nation could operate perfectly fine without authoritarian micromanagement.

They also tried to lure the US into a war in Ukraine to function as a meat shield against Russia. This would trap America in a perpetual quagmire in the best case scenario, weakening the US while Europe is strengthened through years of resource infusions. This plan also seems to have failed. The American public has zero interest in entering the Ukrainian theater or going to war with Russia without a substantial reason.

A fourth tactic is mass immigration, which has been much more successful. The US was almost overrun under the Biden Administration and now we are faced with a long uphill battle to deport millions of illegals. On the upside, border crossings have dropped by 95% and he majority of the citizenry now supports deportations.

Europe has been overwhelmed by a third world incursion. Between 50 million and 60 million migrants now reside in the region, making up around 20% of Western Europe’s total population. But is this just globalist sabotage of the west? Or, does this army of migrants serve another purpose?

As an economic resource they are a net negative. If the idea is for migrants to increase the labor pool and fill traditional jobs, then there is no positive return. Germany’s unemployment rate has climbed to 6.4% and 54% of the unemployed are migrants. These people they take far more in welfare subsidies than they contribute in economic activity.

The same goes for Spain, where the unemployment rate is 10%, yet the far-left Spanish government continues to flood the country with foreigners. The UK’s unemployment rate has climbed to 5% and 22% of the unemployed are foreign nationals on the take.

The decline is present all across the EU; economic growth is stagnating. So, why would the elites view migrants as a resource rather than mere tools for deconstructing western society? I would ask: What if a broad population increase is useful for events that have not yet occurred?

What if world war is still on the table, or an economic collapse followed by globalist consolidation? What if European leaders see millions of extra bodies as a valuable resource to feed that war, or control the citizenry at home? Is mass immigration just about cultural replacement? Or, are third worlders being lured into the west with promises of easy plunder, only to be caught up as cannon fodder in a future conflict?

Have the globalists placed their bets on foreign hordes and the power of cheap labor (or cheap soldiers) as the key to victory?

This brings us to what appears to be the US strategy in preparation for the schism, and it’s not hard to see, it involves oil. The move on Iran is clearly the catalyst for a US program of energy dominance. Consider for a moment the insane geopolitical changes and energy market mutations that have happened in just the past few months.

Venezuela is now under new leadership and shipping oil to the US, while China has mostly been cut out. Trump has been engaging with Panama to dramatically reduce Chinese influence over canal operations, again, cutting the CCP out of the western hemisphere.

Trump’s visit to China this week was filled with grand gestures and diplomatic talk for the cameras, but what really happened behind closed doors? One has to expect that the CCP is very unhappy.

Canada under globalist Mark Carney refuses to negotiate a tariff deal with the US and is trying to form bilateral trade agreements with Europe and China (to Canada’s detriment). This could lead to direct hostilities between the US and Canada if Carney tries to use oil agreements as leverage against Trump, or if he tries to give China access to Canadian soil.

The war with Iran has led to the UAE leaving OPEC, which essentially signals the end of OPEC and an incoming flood of oil to global markets at lower prices once the war is over (which the US will benefit from). It’s a shock in energy markets that has not happened in decades. It also disrupts the globalist climate agenda and their bid for artificial scarcity.

Iran is where the division between the globalists in Europe and conservatives in the US becomes undeniable. Why didn’t European elites immediately jump on board with the Iran war and the effort to control the Strait of Hormuz. They supported every other war in the Middle East from 2001 onward. With Iran, they’ve tried to undermine the US every step of the way.

We know for a fact that Europe’s leadership is devoid of moral principle or conditions of conscience. Their rhetoric and behavior when it comes to Iran and the Hormuz indicates they want the US to fail, not because they disagree with the war, but because they don’t want the US to gain an edge in energy dominance.

US operations against the regimes in Venezuela and Iran are choking energy supplies to China (the most useful economic and military ally for Europe in the event of conflict with the US). This is detrimental to the Europeans IF they are preparing for deeper hostilities with the US in the future.

NATO is now likely to break apart. Trump is threatening to pull troops from Europe and may shut down military bases entirely. Tariff salvos are going to increase. European governments are cracking down on their own citizens for expressing conservative and nationalist views. The lines are forming.

I would not be surprised to see talk of kinetic conflict between America and Europe in the next few years. Unless, something spectacular happens in the near term and the citizens of Europe take their countries back (most EU countries have to wait until 2027-2029 for elections). After endless abuse by the liberal establishment, if there was a war, millions of Europeans would likely welcome the US with open arms.

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Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/17/2026 - 07:00

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