Billions spent by key federal agency hasn't made American dream of homeownership any easier: report

The traditional American dream of homeownership slipped further out of reach across the country over the last decade, even as Washington spent hundreds of billions of dollars on housing programs, according to a new government watchdog analysis.

Open The Books, a conservative watchdog that tracks government spending, analyzed a decade of home price and household income data across all 50 states and compared it with federal housing spending, finding virtually no relationship between greater investment from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and narrower affordability gaps. 

The watchdog found home prices grew faster than median household incomes in every state during the 10 years it reviewed.

"The further you get from a prospective home site, the less effective or efficient any spending or regulatory tweak is likely to be," Christopher Neefus, vice president of communications for Open The Books, told Fox News Digital. "A single agency in Washington is likely the least equipped to offer some uniform solution."

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To measure that disparity, Open The Books calculated the percentage growth in each state’s Federal Housing Finance Agency home price index over the decade and subtracted the percentage growth in median household income over the same period, calling the difference the "Affordability Gap."

Effectively, the metric measures how much faster home prices rose than median household incomes in each state.

The watchdog found home prices grew faster than median household incomes in every state between 2015 and 2024, creating what the group dubbed an "Affordability Gap." The wider the gap, the further the traditional dream of homeownership slipped from what household incomes could keep pace with.

In 48 states, that gap reached double digits, while 17 states saw home price growth outpace income growth by more than 50 percentage points, according to Open The Books' analysis.

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"In this case, nearly half a trillion dollars was shoveled into the states over a decade, but it offered no meaningful effect for Americans whose incomes were outrun by prices in every state," Neefus said. 

"The answer, then, has to be in addressing regulatory hurdles, zoning restrictions and investments at the local level."

To test whether greater federal spending corresponded with better affordability outcomes, Open The Books tallied roughly $460 billion in HUD spending across 18 programs related to housing affordability, availability, rent control and homelessness from 2015 through 2024, then compared each state’s spending with its "Affordability Gap." 

The analysis found virtually no linear relationship between the amount of HUD funding a state received and the size of its affordability gap, according to the watchdog.

In response to the report, HUD pointed to the Trump administration’s efforts to cut regulations, combat fraud and shift more housing policy decisions to state and local governments.

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"Under President Trump’s leadership, HUD is focused on delivering results and making housing more affordable for every American willing to work for it," a HUD spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "We’ve uncovered nearly $495 million in fraud, rolled back burdensome Biden-era policies and helped more than 1 million Americans achieve homeownership.

"Washington doesn’t have all the answers, which is why we’re empowering state and local leaders to advance proven solutions, cut barriers and increase housing supply."

The report comes amid broader concern that younger Americans are being priced out of milestones that previous generations associated with the American dream.

Fox News Digital previously reported that median household income nationally increased 99.7% between 2000 and 2024, while the median sale price of a single-family home increased 150.1% over the same period, according to a housing policy blueprint released earlier this year. The median age of a first-time homebuyer has also climbed to 40.

For Neefus, those trends help explain why younger generations may increasingly view homeownership as something less attainable than it was for their parents and grandparents.

"If you look at how long it would take a median income household to save up for a strong down payment, it’s really no wonder that younger generations might be redefining what the American dream means for them," Neefus said. "If there’s hope of restoring that dream of homeownership, this analysis demonstrates that top-down spending won’t be the way."