Housing costs said to be up

The Oklahoma City Branch of the Federal Reserve of Kansas City released its latest issue of the quarterly publication the Oklahoma Economist, titled “Affordability Worsens, but Oklahomans Still Pay Much Less for Housing.”

Demand for housing in Oklahoma and the nation surged following the Covid-19 pandemic. Higher incomes and lower mortgage rates fueled strong increases in housing demand that lowered supply and propelled home prices, according to Chad Wilkerson, senior vice president and branch executive at the Oklahoma City Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

“The surge in demand tightened housing supply from already depressed levels, reducing the months of supply of unsold homes in Oklahoma from four months in January 2020 to just one month by March 2021,” he said. “Outsized demand for housing in smaller areas in the state caused home values to spike there even more than in larger parts of Oklahoma.”

Wilkerson said despite these large price increases, which reduced overall affordability, housing in Oklahoma is still much more affordable than the nation, even when taking income differences into account.

“In the first quarter of 2023, the typical monthly payment on a new mortgage accounted for 25% of the median income in Oklahoma. In the nation however, the typical payment on a new mortgage was 39% of U.S. median income for the same timeframe,” he said. “As mortgage rates have risen over the past year and a half, demand declined and price growth has eased, which could provide some degree of relief for homebuyers, especially if the market continues to soften.”

The complete issue is available at www.kansascityfed.org/oklahomacity/oklahoma-economist. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City serves the Tenth Federal Reserve District, encompassing the western third of Missouri; all of Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Wyoming; and the northern half of New Mexico.

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