Home prices in the United States have hit an all-time high, new figures show.

The median sale price as of June 2024 was $397,954 – an almost 5 percent year-over-year change – the biggest increase since March this year and taking the level to an all-time high, according to data from Redfin. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) also said that median sale prices have climbed to record highs this year.

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The latest figures come as a study recently concluded that 582 U.S. counties are now considered unaffordable, according to real estate analytics firm ATTOM. The company’s 2024 U.S. Home Affordability Report found that median home ownership costs had risen in 582 of the 589 counties it examined.

The research stated that the average American homeowner with a typical income of $72,358 was spending around 35 percent of their salary on housing costs, although financial experts typically advise people not to spend more than 28 percent.

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In more than a third of counties analyzed in the report, homeowners were spending 43 percent of the average local wage, which the report described as “a benchmark considered seriously unaffordable.”

In June, a California councilman announced he would be resigning from Newark City Council after being “priced out of town.”

Mike Bucci said in a Facebook post: “One of the most frustrating parts for me is that I grew up in a time where we really believed hard work and perseverance would lead to, at the very least, a place to call your own. That’s just not the reality anymore. I’ve had a good, union job in the trades for 20 years, my wife has a successful career at DSRSD and I’m an elected member of my community. If we can’t do it how are other working class folks ever going to do it? What chance does the next generation have? What chance will any of them have to stay in the communities they love?”

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Polling from YouGov recently found that young Americans are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the American Dream, which experts have suggested is (at least in part) due to soaring housing costs.

“The skyrocketing costs of college, the difficulty of climbing onto the property ladder, and surging economic inequality all contribute to the notion that the American dream is dying or dead,” Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science at University College London, told Newsweek.

“Data on economic mobility suggests that the correlation between parental income and children’s income is higher in the U.S. than in almost any other advanced, Western democracy.

“That means that the possibilities and rewards for living out the American dream have never been greater for children born into the top percentage of households.

“But for everyone else, attaining economic security looks more challenging for millennials and Generation Z than it has in the past,” he added.

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