Posted on 12/21/2006 9:57:51 AM PST by RockinRight
This balances both prices AND income so it's a true measure of affordability.
A related article shows that the Midwest and South should hold strong while the Northeast and West will be most likely to suffer declines in real estate over the next couple years.
Oddly, Indiana is also high on the foreclosure list. Indianapolis tends to be a very tough market for home builders.
It is weird, but it seems that the states with the most foreclosures are also the most affordable. You'd think it would be the other way around esp. using the measure of affordability in this article.
Im FROM one of these areas. sure its affordable IF You can find a JOB there.
Theres a reason the housing is so cheap
They based it on average incomes though. Incomes people actually earn.
Texas is pretty affordable too though.
Even considering property taxes, I'd wager that Houston is in the top fifteen most affordable major metro areas.
Exactly. The housing market is most affordable where job market is the worst. Housing prices follow the job market.
Yes, nicely said.
Upstate NY is a good example of that.
There's a healthy balance though. In some places, you can get a job tomorrow, but finding a place to live you can afford might be quite impossible. The middle markets are probably best overall.
If you click the link, you'll see that Los Angeles, one of the least affordable, has LOWER average household income than Akron, Ohio, one of the most affordable.
Assuming you could get a job in Ohio to pay for a house there.
I have a job in Ohio.
Might leave though. More because of the stupid voters and the fact that I'm getting married in Sept. and she's in VA than anything else though.
I'm around the Indy area. Lots of poor people around here. Hamilton county is pretty well to do, but many others around here just lost manufacturing jobs. That's probably part of the foreclosure rate.
I think there's a good balance. The best job markets are often so expensive that job or not, where the hell are you going to live? The bottom is the opposite problem. The best places to live are probably in the middle, really.
Although IIRC the Indianapolis job market isn't bad at all, really.
Indianapolis led all U.S. cities in housing affordability during the third quarter, according to a survey released Monday by Wells Fargo and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). It was the fifth straight quarter that Indianapolis was the most affordable major housing market in the United States.
Nationally, according to NAHB President David Pressly, 40.4 percent of all new and existing homes sold during the third quarter were affordable to families earning the median U.S. income of $59,600. That means more than half the nation had too little income to buy a median priced home.
The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index measures the percentage of homes sold in a given area that are affordable to families earning that area's median income. To be deemed affordable, housing expenses must be no more than 28 percent of income. Expenses include property taxes and insurance as well as the mortgage payment.
Overall affordability changed little from the second quarter as higher mortgage rates offset slightly lower home prices and rising household income. Latest home prices In Indianapolis, 86 percent of the homes sold came in at or below what someone earning the city's median household income ($65,100) could afford to buy.
In contrast, only 1.8 percent of all homes sold in Los Angeles were affordable to those earning $56,200, the median household income there.
Among large cities, northern industrial metro areas dominated the most affordable list with Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pennsylvania, Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Michigan, Buffalo-Niagara Falls, New York and Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Michigan all near the top.
Small cities that were big in affordability included Springfield, Ohio, Mansfield, Ohio, Lansing-East Lansing, Michigan, Lima, Ohio, Battle Creek, Michigan and Canton-Massillon, Ohio. CA monopolized the bottom of the list with Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, Modesto, Stockton, and San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos the least affordable big cities.
Yes, sorry.
I was trying to do 3 things when I posted it!
With the widening of I-71, it's become a very easy commute.
LOL! No problem. I just like paragrapsh. :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.