Opinion: It’s Hard for a Normal Non-Rich Person to Buy a House

This just in. I'm not a wealthy person and statistically-speaking you likely aren't either. Is it just me or does it seem near-impossible for a non-rich person to buy a house these days?

I need to be clear that my job pays me more than fairly. Hopefully you have a job that you're happy with also. Honestly, I thought my family was better off than we apparently are as we've found it nearly impossible to find a home to buy.

If you go to Realtor.com and do a search for available homes in Cedar Falls for example, try looking for a home less than $120,000. The last time I did this, it came up with only 5 homes and 2 were already pending. Waterloo offers a lot more options, but many of those homes also came up as either under contract or pending.

I have several friends in real estate and they have mentioned that many homes will come on the market and almost immediately have cash offers for more than the asking price especially if the home has no known issues that need fixing. Some are blaming it on so many working from home during the pandemic making a nice home a bigger priority.

My family is not alone in our home-shopping misery. Forbes shared an article about the housing inventory crisis and how it's a great opportunity for some (meaning "sellers"). Not great news if you're a buyer, though.

CNN also did a story called 'It's Crazy: There is no inventory'. Tell me about it.

There may be light at the end of the tunnel. Inman did an article about how the current home inventory crisis may be almost over with many new homes coming on the market. I hope so.

It may just be my experience, but home buying now compared to 5 years ago feels like a lifetime of difference. We thought that might be different for our home turf here in Iowa. So far, that has unfortunately not been the case.