The Philly area doesn’t have enough homes available for low- and middle-income buyers

More than one million homes nationwide were available for sale in late April. But high prices mean that what’s out there doesn’t match what people at various income levels can afford, according to a new report from the nation’s Realtors.

Basically, home listings affordable for middle- and lower-income households are missing. The country needs more homes that households at all income levels can buy to chip away at the problems of low affordability and low housing supply, according to a report that the National Association of Realtors and Realtor.com released Thursday.

“Ongoing high housing costs and the scarcity of available homes continues to present budget challenges for many prospective buyers, and it’s likely keeping some buyers in the rental market or on the sidelines and delaying their purchase until conditions improve,” Danielle Hale, Realtor.com’s chief economist, said in a statement.

The report breaks down the number of homes missing for each income level by comparing the number of listings available in April to the number that would need to be available to accommodate buyers. Realtors said they hope local and federal governments can use their analysis to ease the twin problems of affordability and housing supply.

Nationwide, fewer homes are available for middle-income buyers now than five years ago.

“Middle-income buyers face the largest shortage of homes among all income groups, making it even harder for them to build wealth through home ownership,” Nadia Evangelou, senior economist and director of real estate research at the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement.

In the Philadelphia metropolitan area, households making $50,000 faced the largest shortage of available home listings. In April, 3,440 listings affordable to buyers with this income were missing, according to the report. These households should be able to afford 32% of listings, but they were only able to afford 13%.

According to the national analysis, a household making $75,000 — the country’s median household income — can afford to buy a home that costs up to $256,000.

A balanced market would mean that these households are able to afford about half of the homes for sale. But a little less than a quarter of listings in April were priced below $256,000, according to the report.

Even households making $100,000 couldn’t afford half the listings on the market.

For every home that is listed above $680,000, the country needs to add at least two homes that cost up to $256,000, according to the Realtors’ analysis.

Predictably, the biggest gaps between the prices of available homes and the prices households can afford are in expensive big cities, the report said.

The Pittsburgh metropolitan area is one of the regions where the level of available listings for middle-income buyers in April pretty much matched what it should be in a balanced market.

» READ MORE: Income for Black Philly households is stagnant. For everyone else, it’s up almost 25% since 2010.

In addition to income, there’s also a home availability gap by race, since race and income tend to be linked in the United States. Black Americans and white Americans making up to $75,000 could both afford 22% of home listings in April.

But more Black Americans — 66% — than white Americans — 48% — are in that income group. So Black Americans would need more homes that cost up to $256,000 to be available than white Americans do.