Dror Poleg’s Data Dashboard

The Housing Balance Sheet Healed. Entry Costs Did Not.

By Dror Poleg

This chart places three aggregate U.S. housing balance-sheet measures beside Zillow's modeled costs for a median household entering the current market. The layers are deliberately separate: low aggregate debt service and high owner equity do not mean that a new buyer or renter faces the same conditions.

Latest observation: 2026-07·Expected cadence: Monthly
Real EstateEconomyInequality

The upper panels are aggregate stocks and payments. The lower panel models a median household entering the current market. New-homeowner affordability assumes 20% down and does not include the challenge of accumulating the down payment. Data provided by Zillow Group.

What does it show?

Mortgage debt service is 5.9% of disposable income and owner equity is 71.6% of real-estate value. Yet Zillow's 20%-down model puts the typical new buyer at 34.1% of median income, up from 24.7% in December 2019.

Methodology

Pairs three separate Federal Reserve measures on a common quarterly timeline. Mortgage liabilities are divided by nominal GDP after matching the published annual-rate units. Mortgage debt service is required mortgage payments as a share of disposable personal income. Owner equity is the household sector's equity in real estate as a share of household real-estate value. Uses Zillow's monthly national affordability series. New-homeowner affordability divides the modeled total monthly cost of newly purchasing the typical home with 20 percent down by estimated median household income. Total cost includes principal and interest, property taxes, homeowner insurance, and modeled maintenance. New-renter affordability divides the typical market rent measured by ZORI by estimated median household income. The two lines share a denominator and can be compared with each other. They remain separate from the Federal Reserve aggregate mortgage debt-service ratio above. Limits: Mortgage debt relative to GDP is a macro leverage ratio, not a household payment burden. Debt service is an aggregate shaped by the stock of existing mortgages, not today's quoted mortgage rate. High aggregate equity does not show affordability, renter conditions, or how equity is distributed across households. Financial Accounts series can be revised with each quarterly release. The homeowner series assumes a 20 percent down payment and does not measure the difficulty of accumulating that cash. Both lines describe a median household entering the current market, not the cost burden of every household. The renter series reflects a newly leased typical market rental, not existing tenants' contract rents. National medians conceal substantial variation by income, geography, housing type, taxes, and insurance costs. Zillow can revise the full history when its models or source data change.

Sources