We’ve all heard the refrain: it’s never been harder to buy your first home. The narrative almost always circles back to two usual suspects – mortgage rates and home prices. While rates and prices are undeniably visible and powerful levers, they are not the whole story. For industry insiders, the challenge (and the opportunity) lies in understanding the layered, less visible forces shaping affordability for today’s first-time homebuyers. The truth is that affordability isn’t shaped only by where rates land or how quickly prices climb; it’s increasingly a function of a borrower’s balance sheet, monthly cash flow and income, which all factor into debt-to-income ratios (DTI) and ultimately getting approved for a loan.
