By Ali Wolf | Builder
Affordability is one of the key metrics in housing. Traditional measures make assumptions based on home prices and local incomes. Those metrics, however, fall short now that the pandemic has changed how and where some people live. Enter the Zonda Affordability Ratio (ZAR), a new metric that reflects the true state of housing affordability accounting for the work-from-home economy.
The impact of increased migration on the real estate market has been widely reported. Some individuals, generally from higher-cost metros, took the opportunity to move over the past couple of years. Others had already moved before the pandemic but chose to rent before buying. For those renters, the changes brought on by the virus accelerated their shift to homeownership.
