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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Heres the annual U.S. household income needed to finance the purchase of the typical valued U.S. home: January 2020: $51,646 January 2021: $51,740 January 2022: $62,669 January 2023: $86,184 January 2024: $92,006 January 2025: $92,538 Thats a +79% shift in just 5 years. Methodology: This Zillow calculation is conservative and assumes a 20% down payment and the homebuyer spends less than 30.0% of their monthly income on the total monthly payment. This is a financed purchase, of course. For typical home value, Zillow economists used the latest Zillow Home Value Index reading. How did we get here? During the Pandemic Housing Boom, housing demand surged rapidly amid ultra-low interest rates, stimulus, and the remote work boom. Federal Reserve researchers estimate new construction would have had to increase by roughly 300% to absorb the pandemic-era surge in demand. Unlike housing demand, housing supply isnt as elastic and can’t quickly ramp up like that. As a result, the heightened pandemic-era demand drained the market of active inventory and sent national home prices soaring. The typical U.S. home value measured by the Zillow Home Value Index in January 2025 ($356,776) is still a staggering +44% greater than in January 2019 ($247,106). That overheated home price growth, coupled with the ensuing mortgage rate shock, with the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate jumping up from under 3.0% to over 7.0%, has created the fastest-ever deterioration in housing affordability. This affordability squeeze has been broad-based. Below is what this analysis looked like in January 2020. Below is what this analysis looked like for January 2025. The problem, of course, is that incomes havent kept up. While the annual U.S. household income needed to purchase a typical U.S. home has increased by +79% between January 2020 and January 2025, average weekly earnings of U.S. workers have risen by +25%, and overall U.S. consumer inflation has grown by +23% during the same period. Whats the impact of this housing affordability deterioration? The biggest immediate impact of this affordability deterioration is that across the country, existing home sales have been constrained since mortgage rates spiked in 2022. Some of thats the result of suppressed housing demand, but a lot of it is due to the fact that many homeowners whod like to sell their home and buy something else simply cant afford to do so or dont want to part with their lower monthly payment/mortgage rate. All signs point to 2025 being another year of constrained existing home sales.
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Apples new MacBook Air laptops, which the company unveiled alongside a new iPad Air and a disappointing 11th-generation iPad earlier this month, are now on sale. They feature the M4 chip and some additional upgrades that remote workers and desk jockeys, in particular, may appreciate. Ive been playing around with the new 15-inch M4 MacBook Air with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage. Here are my thoughts on it, along with the very similar 13-inch model. The MacBook Air goes M4 Lets address the laptops M4 chip upgrade first, since it features heavily into Apples marketing. Theres no denying that the M4 chip, which comes in two varieties in the new MacBook Air lineup (an 8core or 10-core GPUthe more the better for graphics-intensive apps), is the fastest chip ever in a MacBook Air. Apple brags that the M4 delivers 23x faster performance in some cases versus the fastest Intel chip ever included in older Intel-based MacBook Airs. The company also boasts that the M4 is also up to two times faster than the M1 chip. But theres a reason that Apple is comparing the M4 to chips that are five years old or older. While the M4 is indeed technically faster than the M2 and M3 chips found in the companys 2023 and 2024 MacBook Airs, youre not going to see much of a difference in speed. Indeed, in normal, everyday tasks, including web browsing, photo editing, and word processing, Ive yet to see any notable speed improvement between my M3 MacBook Air and the M4 MacBook Air review unit I received. In other words, the inclusion of the M4 is nice, but most users wont see many real-world benefits over the M2 or M3. That being said, the M4 MacBook Air does feature some genuinely notable upgrades that a select group of users will find invaluable. Desk View makes showing physical objects on video calls more convenient. [Photo: Apple] Upgrades for remote workers and desk jockeys While many aspects of the M4 MacBook Air are nothing more than spec bumps (a slightly faster processor and base RAM upgrades), the laptop series did receive two notable upgrades in 2025, which remote workers and desk jockeys, in particular, will appreciate. First, Apple has ditched the 1080p FaceTime camera found in the M3 MacBook Air for a 12MP Center Stage camera. Center Stage is the name Apple gives to its most advanced webcams. Center Stage uses AI to track your movements in the frame to always keep you in the center of the shot. This is a huge boon when youre on video calls, especially if you are up and about moving around with, say, a whiteboard behind you. Another feature of the Center Stage camera is called Desk View. This is a mode that allows the MacBooks webcam to display what is lying on the desk in front of it. This top-down view makes it easy for those on a call with you to see an object clearly. For example, if you’re a clothing designer videoconferencing with a client, you can lay out fabric samples before you, and your client will be able to get a great overhead view of them all. Second, the M4 MacBook Air includes a big display-related upgrade that people who like using multiple monitors will appreciate. The M4 MacBook Air can now power two external displays with resolutions of up to 6K in addition to the laptops screen. The M3 MacBook Air had been able to support two displaysbut only if the laptops lid was closed. This means the M4 MacBook Air allows you to have a three-display setup on your desk if you want it. Sky, uh . . . blue? The M4 MacBook Air series has gotten a color shake-up. Apple has finally done away with the decade-old Space Grey color option (it looked like metallic ash). In its place, the company unveiled a new Sky Blue color option, which was the color of the review unit I received. The thing is, the color doesnt look that blue. As a matter of fact, when I took the MacBook Air out of its box, I thought there had been a mix-up, and they accidentally sent me the silver color. If youre hoping for a blue laptop, you should definitely check out the color in person before buying it because you may be disappointed with how light the shade of blue looks. Improved display support is nice, but the lack of USB ports on the right side of the MacBook Air is frustrating. [Photo: Apple] The downsides While the M4 MacBook Airs are great machines, I was let down by a few of Apples choices. First, Id hoped that Apple would finally address its frustrating USB-C port placement on this years model. Recent MacBook Airs (the 2025 model included) have 2 USB-C ports. Thats enough for most people. But the annoying thing is that both ports sit on the laptop’s left side. Im not sure why Apple doesn’t just move one of the USB-C ports to the right side of the laptop so that users can plug their accessories in from either end. Doing so would allow users to spread their accessories more evenly across their desktop, leading to a more comfortable workspace. Second, on the 2024 M4 MacBook Pro series, Apple allowed users to upgrade the display from glossy to a nano texture, giving it a more matte-like look. As I wrote late last year, the nano texture display is a sight to behold, and if Apple had added that option to the 2025 M4 MacBook Air, Id seriously have considered upgrading from my M3 MacBook Air this year. But they have decided not to give users that choiceand thats disappointing. Who should get the M4 MacBook Air? Despite being merely a collection of minor spec bumps in many respects, the M4 MacBook Air is still the perfect laptop for most consumers. It is incredibly thin, light, and powerful. Its also got one additional element that I havent mentioned yet, which makes the computer more compelling than ever.
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St. Patricks Day usually conjures images of partying, Catholicism, Irish nationalism and, perhaps most famously, the color green: green clothes, green shamrocks, green beer and green rivers. So my students are often surprised when I tell them that St. Patricks Day was once a solemn feast day when youd be far more likely to see the color blue. In fact, theres even a color known as St. Patricks blue. True blue Historians dont know much about St. Patrick. But they believe he was born in the fifth century as Maewyn Succat. He wasnt Irish; rather he was born in Wales, the son of a Roman-British official. He was, however, captured by Irish pirates and enslaved in Ireland. After six years he went back to Britain but returned to Ireland as one of the missionaries to convert Irish pagans to Christianity. At some point he adopted the Latin name Patricius. In the 10th century, the first evidence of St. Patrick being a beloved figure in Ireland emerged. In the early 17th century, Luke Wadding, an Irish priest, persuaded the Catholic Church to make March 17 a feast day for St. Patrick. St. Patrick wasnt born in Ireland, but he did missionary work there. [Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY] Back then, feast days were far from raucous affairs: Catholics typically went to Mass and then had a quiet dinner at home to celebrate. Other denominations, including Anglicans and Lutherans, recognized the day as well. But any commemorations would include the color blue. The Dublin Evening Post reported that in a 1785 St. Patricks Day ceremony in Dublin, a group of men identifying themselves as patriots marched in a grand procession round the garden, dressed in true blue, and carrying along with them a number of curious pageants. Constance Markievicz, who fought in the 1916 Easter Rebellion for independence and was the first minister of labour in the Irish Free State, maintained that blue was the old colour of Ireland. To connect the past to the nationalist movement, she used blue as the background for the Irish Citizen Armys flag. In 1934, Irish politician W.T. Cosgrave asserted that blue is in perfect, traditional, national accord with our history and in close association with the most revered and venerated memory of our patron Saint. Out with the old, in with the new Since the 12th century, Ireland had been a colony of Great Britain. Like the American Colonists who rebelled against the British crown, a group of rebels called the United Irish launched an insurrection in 1798 in a quest for independence. Led mostly by middle-class Protestants and in coordination with some Catholics, the United Irish adopted the wearing of the green to represent Irish nationalism and their fight against British imperialism. The rebellion failed, and the British government made Ireland part of the United Kingdom in 1801 to prevent future revolutions. The government also bestowed greater rights to Protestants over Catholics. Ireland became more sectarian over the course of the 19th century, and nationalism became more associated with Catholicism. In some ways, the two became interchangeable. With nationalism ascendant and Catholics outnumbering Protestants, green was widely embraced, particularly since it had been worn by the United Irish. Green crosses the pond Before the 1840s, most Irish immigrants to America had been Protestants, many of whom had been the descendants of Scottish settlers in Ulster and would later become known as the Scots Irish. Like those that would succeed them, they celebrated St. Patricks Day to commemorate their connection to Ireland. In the earliest recorded American celebration of the day, banquets toasting Ireland and St. Patrick took place in Boston in 1737. By the 1760s, annual parades were being held in New York and on the island of Montserrat to celebrate Irish culture and identity. Irish immigration to the new world increased dramatically after the Great Hunger of the 1840s, when the potato crops failed and over 1 million indigent Catholics arrived in the U.S. Facing discrimination from American Protestants who claimed they were more loyal to the pope than to the U.S., they viewed St. Patricks Day as a link to the history and culture of Ireland. Celebrations were a badge of pride and dignity, and they called for Irish independence to demonstrate they, too, believed in republican principles. Irish immigrants to the U.S. were eager to profess their embrace of the nations republican ideals. [Art: Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images] Irish nationalist groups active in the U.S. the Fenians, Clan na Gael and, later, Irish Northern Aid participated in these American St. Patricks Day parades, proudly wearing green to demonstrate their nationalism and the connection to past nationalist groups such as the United Irish. In Ireland, however, St. Patricks Day remained a solemn day of observance with little revelry. The Irish government didnt recognize St. Patricks Day as a public holiday until 1903, and the first parade in Dublin wasnt held until 1931. Even pubs remained closed on March 17 until 1961. Since 1922, when 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland became semi-independent, the tricolor flag of Ireland has been the official flag. Green represents the Catholics, orange represents the Protestants, and the white in the middle symbolizes peace. Yet green remains the color associated with St. Patricks Day and Ireland throughout the world, largely due to the Catholic diaspora and its association with nationalism. However, blue still plays a symbolic role in Ireland: Since 1945, the flag representing the president of Ireland has a gold harp with a dark blue background the color known as St. Patricks blue. The Irish presidential flag flies from the car of Irelands president. [Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images] Bryan McGovern is a professor of history at Kennesaw State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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