The mortgage payment share on the median-priced home now sits near 33% of median family income, the highest on record, according to 24/7 Wall St.’s reading of the Federal Reserve’s newest household survey.
For a typical buyer, the biggest bill in the house just got bigger. Three years ago, the share was 26%. In other words, it jumped seven points in a single survey cycle.
The figure comes from the Fed’s 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, which the central bank released on Oct. 9. The survey runs every three years, so each edition is a long-exposure photo of American family finances rather than a snapshot.
Here is the catch. The 33% is a hypothetical payment for a new buyer, not what current owners actually pay. It assumes a 30-year fixed loan covering 80% of the median home’s price, plus property taxes equal to 1% of the home’s value.
It also leaves out insurance, maintenance and HOA fees. Once you add those, 24/7 Wall St. says a real buyer’s housing bill climbs above one-third of income. Lately, rates hitting their highest level since 2023 have only made that math tougher.
So what changed? Mostly the interest rate. The average 30-year mortgage rate rose from 4.2% to 6.7% between the 2022 and 2025 surveys, and that did most of the work in pushing up the payment share.
Home prices played a smaller role.
Prices are not exactly cheap, though. The median home was worth more than 4.5 times median family income in 2025, about the same as the 2022 record. By contrast, that ratio was 3.5 in 2016.
Incomes did grow. The Fed says real median family income rose 7% to $82,200. That is a solid gain, but a loan that costs far more per dollar borrowed can outrun a raise quickly. As a result, pending home sales have sunk to a near 12-year low.
The squeeze reaches well past buyers. A bigger housing bite leaves less room for car payments, credit cards and everything else. According to Investing.com’s analysis of the data, the share of families with debt payments above 40% of income rose to 8.6% from 6.5%, while the share running late on any payment jumped to 19.6% from 12.2%.
The 33% number itself comes through 24/7 Wall St. rather than the Fed’s press release, so the Fed’s full summary report is the place to check the fine print. Still, the direction is hard to argue with.
