Whether it’s parents shuttling their children off to elementary school or students starting their final year of college, back-to-school season is here. We generally spend a minimum of 12 years as a student, more if you pursue a college degree. Along the way, we’re told that education is critical to your ability to earn a decent living.

Traditional measures of affordability can be misleading to potential first-time home buyers because they compare overall median household income with the income required to purchase a median-priced home. However, median household income includes existing homeowner households, which have significantly higher median income than renter households,...

The housing market essentially reached its potential in July 2019, as actual existing-home sales were 0.05 percent above the market’s potential. Existing-home sales in 2019 are running at a pace similar to 2015, even though rates have fallen and household income has increased this year. Housing market potential benefitted from a 10.6 percent...

Since hitting a low point of 63 percent in 2016, the homeownership rate has rebounded, largely driven by millennial households purchasing their first homes. Many surveys, like one by Bank of the West, indicate that millennials are no different from previous generations – they view homeownership as a main tenet of the American Dream.

The housing market underperformed its potential in June 2019, as actual existing-home sales were 1.5 percent below the market’s potential. The market potential for existing-home sales increased 1.1 percent compared with May, according to our Potential Home Sales model.

June marked the 10-year anniversary of the end of the Great Recession. Amid Independence Day celebrations, assessing how the American dream of homeownership has fared since the recession can provide helpful context for the health of today’s housing market. We have assembled a set of housing metrics and compared their values today with what...