Affordability is the quality of being affordable, or within someone's financial reach. When something has good affordability, it means regular people can actually buy it without breaking their budget. A bicycle might have better affordability for most families than a motorcycle.

The word comes up often when discussing housing, education, or healthcare. When politicians talk about housing affordability in a city, they mean whether ordinary workers can actually afford to rent or buy homes there. A college with good affordability might offer scholarships or reasonable tuition that doesn't require crushing student loans.

Affordability is relative: what's affordable to one person might be out of reach for another. A $50 video game has good affordability for some families but poor affordability for others. The concept helps us think about whether products, services, or opportunities are accessible to people at different income levels.

When something loses affordability, it often means prices have risen faster than what people earn. You might hear that a neighborhood “lost its affordability” when rents doubled but workers' salaries didn't. Communities sometimes struggle to balance affordability with quality: making something cheaper can mean compromises, while making it better can put it out of reach for people who need it most.