Mortgage rates are low, but home values compared with annual incomes are greater than before the housing bubble, the Washington Post reported today. In the fourth quarter of 2012 alone, homeowners spent almost 37 percent less on the payments than they did in the years before the housing bubble, according to real estate tracking firm Zillow. But this saving has a flip side: As home values rise, paychecks are not keeping up. At the end of 2012, buyers bought homes that were three times their annual income, on average, up from 2.6 times before the housing bubble.
