 The annual income to buy a medium-value house exceeds the medium household income by over $40,000, which is also a new record. The U.S. housing market is extremely, extremely unaffordable. In fact, the most unaffordable it's ever been on record. And now we're looking at a situation where millions of homeowners are going to have to get slammed with higher monthly payments. Why? Adjustable-rate mortgages have never completely disappeared.