U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Put today's finances into the past
How would today's income meet yesterday's new-home market?
Compare the national annual median new-home sale price, annual mortgage rates, and an inflation-adjusted version of your current income across every eligible completed year from 1972 through 2025.
- Educational historical comparison
- Estimated principal and interest only
- Your entries stay in this browser tab
Your private comparison
Start with your current situation
Inputs are held only in client memory. They are not added to the URL, sent to a server, or saved.
What this comparison means
A narrow, reproducible baseline
The calculator translates your current income and entered debt into each historical year with CPI-U, applies your down-payment percentage to the official annual median new-home sale price, and estimates 30-year fixed principal and interest with the annual average Freddie Mac rate.
It excludes property tax, homeowners insurance, PMI, HOA dues, maintenance, utilities, closing costs, credit, and underwriting. It does not say that you could have qualified for or purchased a home.
Why some years are not ranked
- 1963–1970: no Freddie Mac PMMS observations.
- 1971: PMMS begins in April, so it is context only.
- 2026: current observations are partial and have different dates.
- Missing data is unavailable, never converted to zero.
Official and direct sources
Trace the inputs
Freddie Mac
Primary Mortgage Market Survey historical weekly data
weekly observations through 2026-07-30Open direct sourceRead methodologyU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
CPI-U CUUR0000SA0 API observations, 2023-2026
through June 2026, released 2026-07-14Open direct sourceRead methodologyForbes
The World's Working Rich
published 1998-07-06; valuation rates from early May 1998Open direct sourceRead methodologySource snapshot retrieved Aug 4, 2026. The application calculates from the immutable active snapshot and does not fetch upstream sources during your visit.