Family Life

07.16.12 | Sarah Harnisch

The housing market is showing signs of life, but most people are still struggling to get a mortgage. Reuters recently published a poll that shows most economists think the market has bottomed, and housing sales should rise nearly 2-percent in 2013. Mortgage rates have never been cheaper. Nela Richardson is a mortgage market analyst. She says "for the first time since 1950, people are paying back more on their mortgages then banks are lending. Banks are a little gun shy. They don't want to lend when they think prices may still be falling." The national average FICO credit score to get a mortgage today is 736. It was 680 before the housing boom. The average American family makes 49-thousand dollars, the same level as during the Clinton Administration in 1996.