You don't have to be a millionaire to buy a home!

More than 70% of homes that were sold in the third quarter were deemed affordable! Now is the time to buy!
The Great Recession has ravaged savings and boosted unemployment rates, forcing people to become more conservative with their cash. It has also made homes a lot more affordable - at least for those people still working.
The typical American family, making the nation's median income of $64,000 a year, could afford to buy 70/1% of the homes sold in the United States during the third quarter, according to a report from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500).
That's down slightly from the previous quarter, when 72.3% were considered affordable, but still way p from the third quarter of 2008, when only 56/1% of the homes qualified. The NAHB judges a home to be affordable if a family making the metro area's median income could buy it if they devote no more than 28% of their gross pay toward housing costs.
The affordability pushed many buyers into the market last quarter. Plus, they wanted to take advantage of the $8,000 homebuyer's tax credit that was scheduled to expire on Nov 30.
Those that procrastinated, however, got lucky: The credit was recently extended and expanded to include more buyers.
"At a time when housing is at its most affordable, we applaud the recent actions taken by COngress and President Obama to stimulate housing by extending the federal tax credit beyond its November 30th deadline and expanding to a wider group of eligible home buyers" said NAHB Chairman Joe Robson, a home builder from Tulsa, OK.
"With interest rates now lower than last quarter, the tax credit will encourage even more home buyers to enter the market and help stabilize housing and the economy by creating new jobs, stimulating home sales, reducing foreclosures, cutting excess inventories and stabilizing home prices."

Extremes of affordability
All real estate is local, of course; it doesn't matter much to someone buying in Peoria what a home sells for in Pennsauken. The fact is, though, that housing markets across much of the nation have been and remain quite affordable for most working households.
In Cherry Hill, NJ the median household income is $81,000 a year. Figuring conservatively that no more than 28% of household income should go to pay for housing expenses, buyers could afford a house costing well over $300,000.

One man's meat...
What's good for buyers is pure poison for sellers, who are the big losers as affordability improves. Prices have fallen more than 30% from their peaks, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index and many people selling their homes these days are taking losses.
According the data from Zillow.com, the real estate information website, 27% of all sellers during the quarter received less than what they paid for their homes.
There are sure signs of the improvement of real estate as housing slowly begins to increase.