Dive Brief:

• States in the West and Midwest are among the best for first-time buyers based on affordability, employment, inventory conditions, credit availability and millennial homeownership rates, according to Bankrate.

• Iowa led the list, followed by Utah, Minnesota, Kansas and Missouri. California, Hawaii and New York came in at the bottom of the list. Oregon and Colorado came in No. 42 and No. 43, respectively. Inventory tightness was also a measure of affordability.

• In the least affordable states on the map, more than one-third of household income is tied up in principal and interest payments compared to 13% in the more affordable states.

Dive Insight:

Inventory, particularly in the entry-level category, is coming under pressure as supply-side headwinds like lot and labor shortages, land regulations and tight financing make it difficult for builders to get new units in the ground. That’s resulting in relatively low levels of new home starts.

Builders have their eyes on the Trump administration, which campaigned on pledges to reduce regulations across the board, reform business and consumer lending practices and rework Obama-era environmental policies that, builders say, add time and cost to projects. 

So far, Trump has signed an executive order suspending a decrease in the Federal Housing Administration’s mortgage insurance premium, which advocates said would have lowered (albeit slightly) mortgage payments for new buyers. Last month, Trump signed an executive order to review and revise the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform and Consumer Protection Act. Earlier this week, he called on the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers to similarly examine the Waters of the U.S. rule, which aims to protect smaller waterways that feed larger bodies of water but imposes rules that some developers say are too rigid.

Although builders have cheered Trump’s actions on these issues, the review and revision processes they entail could, in some cases, last the duration of his current term of office.

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