By Elizabeth Renter | NerdWallet

Home prices may have come down from their 2022 high, but they remained out of reach for the typical would-be first-time buyer in the second quarter, especially in the nation’s most populous areas.

Buying a home in this market can be particularly hard for people who haven’t done it before. First-time buyers traditionally have lower incomes and less established credit than repeat home buyers. Further, they generally make smaller down payments — 8%, on average, according to the most recent Profile of Buyers & Sellers from the National Association of Realtors, compared with 19% for repeat buyers. Buying a first home has arguably never been easy, but it’s gotten extremely difficult under current conditions.

With a down payment of 8%, housing payments on a typically priced home in the second quarter of 2024 would equate to almost half of the median gross monthly income for Americans of first-time buyer age.

Making a larger down payment or choosing a less desirable home could make this initial purchase easier, but not all homebuying hopefuls will find those options possible.

Housing payments for first-time buyers: 49% of income

The average sticker price for a home in the second quarter of this year was $439,000, according to NerdWallet analysis of Realtor.com data. But the advertised price of a home is far from the only consideration of affordability.

For that reason, we examined the potential housing payment for first-time buyers in the second quarter. This payment not only accounts for the price of the home, but also the typical first-time buyer down payment, mortgage rate, real estate taxes, homeowners insurance and PMI, or private mortgage insurance — a requirement on conventional mortgages financed with less than 20% down.

That estimated monthly housing payment using the nationwide average home price was close to $3,500 in the second quarter of the year. That’s 49% of the median income for Americans in the first-time home buyer age group. And estimated payments in some of the country’s largest metro areas were considerably higher.

First-time home buyer tip: In the highest-priced markets such as Los Angeles, New York and San Diego, putting 8% down on a home may not be feasible. That’s because typical home prices in these areas are well over one million dollars, and would require what’s known as a jumbo mortgage. Currently, loans over $766,550 exceed the cap for conforming loans, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and jumbo loans generally have stricter standards, including larger down payment requirements. Buyers in these markets will need higher-than-average incomes, larger down payments and flexibility on their side to become homeowners.

In other areas, buyers hoping to put less than 20% of the sale price down have more options. Many lenders offer loans with lower down payments — as low as 3% — and most states have first-time home buyer programs with benefits such as down payment assistance.

Buyers (and borrowers) have a few options

One lesson that became apparent to home buyers over the past few years: You can’t take low mortgage rates for granted. After several years of rates below 5% (with periods even below 3%), current rates are a reminder that it’s not only home prices that matter in home affordability calculations. Borrowers can take some steps to ensure they qualify for the lowest rates available, but lenders will only go so low. Home down payments are another input that can have a considerable impact on how much buyers spend each month.

Increasing a down payment from 8% to 12%, for example, can shave several hundred dollars off of the monthly housing cost. But if possible, increasing your down payment to 20% can eliminate the PMI requirement on a conventional loan.

First-time home buyer tip: To be sure, putting 20% down on a high-priced home won’t be possible for all first-time buyers. It’s an especially tall order when homes are priced as high as they are now. But the larger your down payment, the less you have to finance, and every bit helps. So, for instance, if you’re waiting for mortgage rates to come down a bit, using that time to intentionally squirrel away more in savings means you can also take out a smaller loan when you’re ready to start shopping. If you hope to buy in the coming months, keeping your down payment fund in a high-yield savings account ensures it’s readily available. But if you plan on waiting a year or two and can stand putting the money out of reach, a certificate of deposit may offer higher rates.

Inventory deficit remains the driver of high prices

The high home prices we currently see are a direct result of too few homes. This low supply in the face of high demand drives prices up. And currently, the supply is so low that even seasonal quarterly gains in inventory aren’t enough to provide relief.

The second quarter of the year generally brings more listings to the market, and Q2 of 2024 was no different. Across the country, the number of homes on the market rose by 17% compared with the previous quarter, and a generous 34% compared to last year’s second quarter. Despite these gains, list prices rose 4% in the second quarter.

While inventory continues to climb, the current number of homes on the market at any given time is still at a significant deficit from where it was before the pandemic.

First-time home buyer tip: In the past, first-time buyers began their homeownership journey with a “starter” home — something smaller or a home that needed some work — to help keep the price point reasonable. But in this market where homes are few and far between, starter homes are difficult to find. One way to increase the number of homes available to you is to expand your search. Whether geographically — looking at homes in different neighborhoods or even towns — or by considering home types or features that aren’t on your long-term wishlist, the more flexible you are in your homebuying journey, the more likely you are to find something that fits the bill.

The analysis methodology is available in the original article, published at NerdWallet.

Elizabeth Renter writes for NerdWallet. Email: elizabeth@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @elizabethrenter.

The article Q2 Affordability Obstacles Hinder Would-Be First-Time Home Buyers originally appeared on NerdWallet.

Two months after ousting Natalie Darwitz as its general manager, Minnesota’s PWHL team has hired a new GM, longtime AHL executive Melissa Caruso.

A St. Paul resident, Caruso most recently spent five years as vice president of hockey operations and governance at the American Hockey League, the top minor league for the NHL.

Melissa Caruso (Courtesy PWHL)

“Melissa stood out as the ideal candidate,” PWHL senior vice president for hockey operations Jayna Hefford said in a statement.

Caruso and Hefford are scheduled to speak to reporters on Wednesday.

“It’s an exciting time for women’s sports, and I thank leadership for trusting me with the opportunity to lead PWHL Minnesota during these crucial formative years for the league,” Caruso said in a statement. “I can’t wait to get started on the journey to defend the Walter Cup in Season Two.”

Minnesota, which plays at Xcel Energy Center, won the Walter Cup as champion of the PWHL’s season, rallying past regular-season champion Toronto by winning the last two games of the five-game finals series.

The team was built by Darwitz, the former Gophers star, U.S. Olympian and Hamline head coach who used the first pick in the first PWHL draft to take Patty Kazmaier Award-winner Taylor Heise, whom she coached as an assistant at Minnesota. Heise was the leading scorer in the PWHL postseason with five goals and eight points.

But Darwitz was fired a month later after what Hefford called a lengthy internal and external review.

“The feedback to us was pretty direct and pretty clear that there wasn’t a path forward with the current personnel in place,” Hefford said during a June 8 Zoom interview with select members of the media that did not include the Pioneer Press. “It was with the work we did throughout the year, and it was clear that a change needed to be made.”

At the time, Darwitz said she was proud of what the team had accomplished but declined to address her exit.

Caruso started at the AHL as an intern in 2009 and worked her way through a handful of positions before becoming a vice president in 2015.

“Her strong background in operations and governance, combined with her extensive hockey knowledge and leadership experience, make her a great fit for the role,” Hefford said. “Additionally, Melissa’s passion for the game, along with her ties to the local community, positions her perfectly to lead the team both on and off the ice.”

The PWHL will release its 2024-25 schedule at a later date.

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The surging enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia and North Carolina is convincing local Democratic leaders that she can score the first double win in the Southern swing states since Jimmy Carter.

More than 52,000 volunteers have joined the Harris campaign there since she announced her presidential bid — so many that county party heads barely know what to do with them. One official in the Greensboro, North Carolina, area described her headquarters as a “madhouse,” with up to 30 people showing up every day to help and a deep-pocketed donor shelling out to pay neighborhood canvassers.

Harris, a Californian, has opened up an electoral path in two traditionally Republican states in the South that no Democrat has won together since Georgia native Carter in 1976. In the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of registered voters in seven swing states, she’s now leading Donald Trump in both states by 2 percentage points.

That’s within the margin of error, meaning the two are essentially in a toss-up election. But it’s an improvement from her showing in July, when she lagged Trump by 2 points in North Carolina and was even with him in Georgia — and it’s much better than President Joe Biden’s numbers before he exited the race.

Harris, 59, is pulling in people like Kameryn Taylor, 25, who said she was struggling to rouse up the energy to turn out for the 81-year-old Biden. Now she’s all in.

“I’m pretty pro-Kamala,” Taylor said in a recent interview in Greensboro. “I like that she is a fresh face, and I like that’s she’s willing to take on women’s rights when it comes to abortion.”

Potential voters in both states praised the Democratic candidate’s relative youth and vigor, her identity as the first Black and Asian woman to lead a major-party ticket and her commitment to reproductive rights. In the August poll, Harris posted double-digit gains in support among women, those aged 18-34 and seniors 65 and older in North Carolina and smaller but notable increases among such groups in Georgia compared to Biden. Her share of Black voters in each state exceeded Biden’s as well.

Barely considered a swing state, North Carolina was moved to a “toss up” last week by the Cook Political Report. Neighboring Georgia became a toss up recently, potentially relieving some of the pressure for Harris to win the so-called blue wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“This race turned on a dime,” said Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College in North Carolina. “It’s a whole new dynamic.”

To be sure, the GOP remains powerful in North Carolina and Georgia, and Trump still draws adoring crowds. North Carolinians last elected a Democrat president in 2008, while Biden’s squeaker of a win in Georgia in 2020 was the first Democratic victory there since Bill Clinton’s first term.

Trump’s campaign has cast Harris’ surge as a sugar high that is leveling off. “We believe, internally, based on the data, that the plateau’s been reached,” Trump campaign spokesman Brian Hughes said.

But Harris has been able to pull some of the voters who dislike both Trump and Biden, said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University and author of the forthcoming Anatomy of a Purple State: A North Carolina Politics Primer.

In Georgia, the Harris camp said it has the largest in-state operation of any Democratic presidential campaign cycle, with more than 190 staff members in 24 offices. In Fayetteville, a bustling Atlanta suburb, Democratic Party Chair Joe Clark said he’s never seen so much investment from headquarters, with new 65-inch television monitors installed in some offices and full-time security.

On Friday, the cramped Fayetteville office was cluttered with Harris yard signs and a jumbo dry erase calendar full of Young Democrat socials and Saturday canvassing events. A local congressional candidate, Maura Keller, popped in and said that since Harris became the nominee, far more people are paying attention to her race against Trump-endorsed Republican Brian Jack and taking her campaign signs. And at the monthly Pancakes & Politics breakfast, which used to get a decent crowd, lately “it’s standing room only,” said county membership chair Bertha Regans.

Over in Greensboro, Guilford County Democratic Party Chair Kathy Kirkpatrick is fielding scores of volunteers energized from the Democratic National Convention in August, particularly after former first lady Michelle Obama’s speech exhorting people to “do something.”

The office the day after “was a madhouse,” Kirkpatrick said. “They’re all there to do something, which was fun.”

Harris’s pick of Minnesota Tim Governor Tim Walz as her running mate has also cheered some North Carolinians.

“Kamala and Tim really support people to be who they are, and there’s this absence of division and absence of hate,” said Sarah McDavid, 53, owner of a metaphysical shop in downtown Greensboro. “They really are bringing in a little more happiness to politics.”

Just up the sidewalk, though, Clayton Sturdivant, 52, said he remained undecided. The United Parcel Service driver is deeply religious and some of the Democratic Party’s positions, such as support for abortion rights, bother him. But the Republican Party seems to ignore Black people altogether, he said.

Said Sturdivant, “We should trust in God.”

In August, seemingly the bulk of Asheboro, North Carolina – population 28,000 – turned out for a Trump rally at a tiny airport and aviation museum amid pastures and forests. Vendors sold full-size cardboard cut-outs of the former president, and fans proudly wore ball caps reading, “I’m voting for the felon.”

Trump during his speech blasted Biden and Harris for elevated inflation and illegal immigration, themes he’s hit on for months. But the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll showed that Harris is faring better than Biden when it comes to pocketbook issues. When voters were asked who they trust more on the economy, Harris trailed Trump by just single digits in Georgia and North Carolina, while Biden had lagged by over 10 percentage points in each state before he exited the race.

In Leland, a boomtown off the North Carolina coast, Barry Meyer has grown more comfortable with Harris in the past month after initially having his doubts.

“I’m very confident that she could do a great job, because I like the enthusiasm,” Meyer, 71, said. “Because with Biden, Democrats were like, ‘God, is that the best we can come up with?’”

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(With assistance from Gregory Korte.)

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