Motherhood and apple pie are still fine, but the thing many Americans relish most these days is owning their own home. Two in three homes are owned by their occupants, and the lowest mortgage rates in three decades keep the numbers rising. But this does not suit everybody. There have long been cities, such as San Francisco and Boston, which lure in so many members of the ever-growing middle class that poorer people get priced out of the housing market. Now the problem is national. According to a report by Harvard University, house prices have been jumping ahead of incomes in most of America's big cities (see chart). Eight of the 50 biggest metropolitan areas have seen prices rise by nearly a third in real terms since 1997. The national rate for mortgage foreclosures is at a 30-year high, with Indiana, Ohio, Mississippi and Utah to the fore.
展开▼
