In Data: Why has housing become an issue in the U.S. election?

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With home ownership beyond the reach of many Americans, the issue of affordable housing has become a major issue for voters.

Both Democrat presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, have focused on housing affordability in their campaigns.

Harris has put housing at the centre of her economic pitch and is promising to build more homes as the centrepiece of an effort to tackle a record rise in house prices.

Last year, the average income needed to make a 10% down payment on a house was $103,200, 22% above the median household income in the country, according to real estate firm Zillow.

In 2022, the median sale price for a single-family home in the United States was 5.6 times higher than the median household income, higher than at any point on record dating back to the early 1970s. High price-to-income ratios are an especially worrying indicator of deteriorating home buyer affordability. 

One of the factors driving up prices is a shortage of housing.

About an extra 7 million affordable homes are needed to meet the estimated housing demand, but the United States is building homes at the same rate it did half a century ago, despite a larger population.

Harris has promised to boost the construction of about 3 million new homes through a new tax credit for developers who build homes for first-time home buyers and a $25,000 tax credit for such buyers.

Trump has said that sweeping crackdowns on immigration will free up housing supply for U.S. citizens and lower prices. He also promised tax breaks and reduced regulations, but has been unclear on the details.

Trump has also said he would ban mortgages for illegal immigrants, halve the costs of new homes and open federal lands to large-scale housing construction, Republican National Committee spokesperson Taylor Rogers has told Context.

The housing problem is also fuelling existing inequalities.

As prices surge, homeowners have gained more than $12 trillion in home equity - the value of a home minus any outstanding mortgages - over the last four years.

Median real household wealth rose between 2019 and 2022, the last years for which data are available. These price surges tend to favour whiter, older and wealthier people, who are the primary demographic of homeowners in the United States.

(Reporting by Ranel Felix and Diana Baptista; Editing by Jon Hemming.)