Gates
Ownership barriers
A household can find a list price that looks reachable on paper and still fail to close. Ownership is a stack of gates: cash, credit, insurance, available units, and the rules that decide what can be built. Treating “the price” as the whole story is how viral posts skip the stack.
Cash to close
Down payment, prepaid taxes and insurance, and closing costs are a liquidity test, not only a price test. Two households with the same income can split on savings. This desk will not invent a typical down-payment percent. Lender overlays and program rules change; cite the program document when the claim must hold.
Credit and underwriting
Ability-to-repay rules, debt-to-income screens, and credit history sit between an advertised rate and a locked loan. Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) files show origination and denial patterns by borrower and census-tract characteristics. They are not a credit-score league table, and this desk will not invent denial rates.
Insurance and carrying costs
In some metros, property insurance availability and price have become a binding constraint. That is a local fact pattern, not a single national premium this page will invent. Property taxes and maintenance are the rest of the carrying-cost stack. They belong next to affordability, not as an afterthought.
Inventory and land use
A thin listings market is a different barrier from a high repeat-sales index. Census New Residential Construction (housing starts, permits, completions) is the public supply-flow series. What can be built on a lot is a land-use and permitting question — see policy levers.
Technology and listing infrastructure sit on techandrealestate.com. Program design that tries to lower a specific gate sits on affordablehousinginitiative.org.