After a long housing hunt, she decided to up her budget by buying with a friend

It’s not the worst-time in the world to be a homebuyer, but it’s also not the best. Mortgage rates didn’t get below 6% last year, housing shortages persist with the national homeowner vacancy rate at 1.2%, and median existing-home prices are sitting at $405,4000.

Ashley Ayala lives in Texas and she’s among the cohort of people that “Marketplace” host Kristin Schwab has been checking in with as part of our Lived Economies series. Ayala has been working on buying her first house and is now in the process of closing.

Ayala joined Schwab to talk about what the process has been like and how she ended up buying the house with a friend.

Click the play button above to hear their conversation.