Median new US home price vs median household income, 1984-2026. Latest: $393,300 (quarter 2026-07-01) vs $87,460 income (2025), ratio 4.50 years of income.
A two-pen chart recorder on lab paper: the median price of a new US house against median household income, plus the dark ratio pen that divides one by the other - the years of income a median new home costs.
| Dataset 1 | MSPUS: Median Sales Price of New Houses Sold for the US, quarterly, nominal dollars - Census Bureau & HUD, via FRED. US government data. fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS |
| Dataset 2 | MEHOINUSA646N: Median Household Income in the US, annual, current (nominal) dollars - Census Bureau, via FRED. US government data. fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA646N |
| Dataset 3 | CSUSHPISA: S&P Cotality Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index, monthly - S&P Dow Jones Indices (third-party data redistributed by FRED; not US government data). fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPISA (key C) |
| Records | 255 quarterly prices (1963-2026, shown 1984+), 42 annual incomes (1984-2025), 476 monthly index values |
| URL | fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=MSPUS (etc.) - fetched 2026-11-08 |
Red pen: median new-home price in nominal dollars, left axis, step-drawn quarterly. Blue pen: median household income in nominal dollars, same axis, step-drawn annually. Dark pen: price ÷ income for the same year, right axis in years - both sides nominal, so the ratio is unit-consistent. Step drawing, no smoothing. Key C swaps the red pen for the Case-Shiller repeat-sales index (dashed).
For two decades the pens climbed together; after 2000 the dark pen lifts away and, except for the 2012 trough, never comes back. In 2026 the median new house costs about five years of median income.
New-home sale price is not the price of the typical existing home. Both pens are nominal (current-dollar), so neither shows inflation-adjusted purchasing power - but the ratio, nominal over nominal, is consistent. Income is a survey estimate revised after release, held flat between annual releases, so within-year ratio wiggles come from the price side. The ratio in years is a display convenience, not an affordability index.
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