Housing prices, rents, sales — and what the payment takes out of a paycheck
Three price indexes, two rent indexes, existing-home sales and the mortgage rate were all in the store and never on a page. The affordability line reuses the Cost of Living gauge's marginal-buyer construction — 80% of the Zillow home value financed over 30 years at the Freddie Mac rate — and divides the monthly payment by one average private earner's monthly pay.
Cite
MacroGauge Housing payment-to-income, 2026-08-01, 29.0% of an average private paycheck — https://macrogauge.vercel.app/housingAffordability — monthly payment as a share of monthly pay, since 2018
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Income proxy: CES0500000003 (avg hourly earnings, total private) x 2080 / 12 — one average private earner, not median household income. Rate: PMMS 30-year, monthly mean of weekly prints. This is a single-earner affordability read, deliberately harsher than household-income measures; the shape over time is the point, and the 2018 level is the reference line.
Prices, rents, sales
| Measure | Latest | YoY | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zillow Home Value Index zhvi_us | $368,697 | +1.2% | Aug 2026 |
| Case-Shiller national CSUSHPINSA | 337.3 | +1.9% | Jul 2026 |
| FHFA US HPI (quarterly) USSTHPI | 719.9 | +3.0% | Apr 2026 |
| Zillow Observed Rent Index zori_us | $1,948/mo | +2.5% | Aug 2026 |
| Apartment List national rent aptlist_us | $1,388/mo | −0.4% | Sep 2026 |
| Existing home sales (SAAR) EXHOSLUSM495S | 3.98M | −1.2% | Aug 2026 |
Case-Shiller and FHFA are indexes (level shown, YoY is the comparable number); Zillow values and rents are dollars. Existing-home sales are a seasonally adjusted annual rate. Metro-level rents live on /metros; the marginal-buyer shelter variant is on /cost-of-living.