If you’ve been scrolling listings at midnight, doing mental math on mortgage calculators, and wondering, “Wait…how is anyone actually buying a house right now?” you are not alone.

My guest today is Alex Gailey, personal finance reporter at Bankrate, and she’s been digging into the numbers behind America’s housing affordability crisis. Her reporting found something jaw-dropping: the typical U.S. household can’t afford three-quarters of the homes currently on the market.

In this conversation, we’re going to break down what’s driving the affordability squeeze — from the “lock-in effect” of homeowners clinging to 3% mortgages, to the widening gap between incomes and housing costs, to the new reality that many buyers are spending closer to 40%+ of their income just to make the monthly payment work.

Alex also shares where in the country buyers still have a real shot, what she’s hearing from successful first-time buyers about the real keys to getting in (hint: flexibility, patience, and boundaries), and why renting can be a smart wealth-building move when buying would make you house-poor.

Plus: we talk about the rise of unconventional paths to homeownership — buying with friends or family, “house hacking,” down payment help — and what all of this signals about the future of the American Dream, especially for millennials and Gen Z.

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