Dive Brief:

• In its latest release of the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI), NAHB says Americans could afford fewer of the homes sold in the third quarter of 2013.
• The measure looks at the median income nationally ($64,400 annually) and the percentage of new and existing homes sold at prices that a family with that income is deemed to be able to afford, with the most-recent number coming in at 64.5%.
• The study also evaluates individual markets' median incomes and home sales, and the third-quarter study showed Indianapolis-Carmel, Ind., and Syracuse, N.Y., were highest at 93.3% while San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, Calif., scored lowest at 16%.

Dive Insight:

NAHB cited several factors it believes accounted for the decline from a 69.3% national rate in the second quarter, including rising prices for existing homes and higher costs for builders to produce new ones. Tight lending and rising mortgage rates caught flak, too, with the group's chief economist, David Crowe, saying those factors might have killed sales of more modestly priced homes and raised the average prices.