Here Are The Cities Where Middle-Class Homebuyers Are Screwed

It's really hard for a middle class family to buy a house along the California coast.

Real estate research and marketplace site Zillow routinely calculates an index of housing affordability. First, they use a proprietary statistical model to estimate housing values in a metropolitan area. Then, they calculate the monthly mortgage payment for a median price house in each metro area. Finally, they calculate the percentage of the median monthly income for each metro area needed to pay that mortgage payment.

For example, Zillow's estimate for the median home price in Abilene, TX during the first quarter of 2014 was $98,600. After a 20% down payment, a homebuyer would need to take out a $78,880 mortgage. Assuming a 30 year fixed rate mortgage at a 4.3% annual interest rate, this would lead to a monthly payment of about $390, which we calculated using Bankrate's mortgage calculator. Zillow's estimate for the median annual income in Abilene is $43,058, or a monthly income of about $3,588. Finally, by dividing, we see that the $390 mortgage payment is about 11% of that monthly income.

Here's a map showing Zillow's Q1 2014 housing affordability estimates in 285 of the nation's largest metropolitan areas. Darker regions indicate larger proportions of a median income needed to pay a mortgage on a median value house. The four California cities in which a median mortgage payment is at least 40% of a median income are also indicated by name:

Yep its the Bay Area’s No Growth..BONANZA

economic growth...via pumping up the prices by keeping the supply as low as possible.

The east bay is huge by any standards so too often I think of it as western Alameda county.....aka Oakland Berkeley albany...etc..etc.

I used to know a guy who bought a tiny house way up near the peak...on Mt Tamalpais for 5K...back several decades ago. no telling what its worth these days

My wife and I are currently remodeling her mom’s house in SF. It was in disrepair, no work having been done on it in 60 years. A house about 5 homes up the block went on the market this year for $2.4 million. No way, we thought. It sold within a few weeks. This in the Glen Park neighborhood, formerly a blue-collar working man district but now a tony area for well-to-do. Forty years ago homes sold there in the low $30-thousands. It’s true that Chinese buyers are coming in with cash offers, real crazy. Many of the long-time owners can’t keep up with costs and have moved away and cashed out. New buyers come in and are upgrading like crazy. My wife’s family were there from early 1950s, one of the last old-time owners.

“This in the Glen Park neighborhood, formerly a blue-collar working man district but now a tony area for well-to-do. Forty years ago homes sold there in the low $30-thousands.”

In the 70’s, I worked on Jerrold Avenue. (Produce Market Area, but not in produce). Used to take a walk out to Glenn Park on occasion when I needed BART (16th St. was not a good place to go then). I guess I should not be surprised about home prices there now, but it was, as you say a blue collar neighborhood. Back then, you needed to go on out to St. Francis Woods or West Portal to find expensive homes. But then look at Potrero Hill, they used to find dead bodies there, but now it’s also expensive real estate.

But then look at Potrero Hill, they used to find dead bodies there, but now it’s also expensive real estate.

It's happened all over SF, except the core of Hunter's Point/Bayview district. Back in the 1960s my mom worked as a manager in the Rio theater on Union Street near Fillmore. That was a blue collar neighborhood of victorian homes and just a few stores and two theaters. In the 1970s tony stores set up shop and Union Street became the place for well-to-do to shop. In the 1970s I worked in Civic Center, and you didn't dare go west of Van Ness Avenue beyond City Hall because of all the dope addicts and hold-up robbers. After the 1989 earthquake and demolishing of the skyway, it got gentrified and went upscale. Clement Street was a quiet area, and became the new Chinatown.

I used to go to elementary school on Potrero Hill, was bused into that black neighborhood and hated it, was scared to be there. As you say, it went upscale - all the blacks moved away and ritzy stores moved in. What people don't understand, is that it's normal for change to occur. Some towns grow and change for the better, and some towns die (Detroit is a current example).

SF was just lucky to be positioned near beneficial job growth. Mediteranean-type weather, calm weather port, focal point for the gold and silver rush, shipbuilding for wars and staging for the military, west endpoint of the continental railroad, port for central valley produce, large universities know world-wide, nuclear research, Silicon Valley technology growth, genetics research, the list goes on and on. And people wonder why anyone would want to live here. Follow the money.

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