Bankrate subsidiary Interest.com claims home affordability is highly dependent on where you live.
The website released a report, saying median income households can only afford median-priced homes in 14 of the 25 largest metro areas, suggesting that nine major markets are too expensive for the average American.
The most affordable metros include Detroit, Atlanta and Minneapolis, while the least affordable include San Diego, New York and San Francisco.
“Despite all of the talk about how homes are more affordable than they have been in decades, buying a home is still a big challenge for many American households,” said Mike Sante, managing editor of Interest.com. “Dealing with rising expenses and stagnant wages is a struggle. Even after years of declining home prices and record-low mortgage rates, median-income households are unable to afford a median-priced home in nearly half of the metropolitan areas that we looked at.”
In Detroit, the median household income exceeds the earnings required to afford a median-price home by 45%, while in San Francisco the median income is 32.76% under the income required to buy a median-priced home in the area.
This essentially means that in markets like Los Angeles, Miami, San Diego, New York and San Francisco income is not keeping up with home prices.
Phoenix, one of the hard-hit sand states, is doing better. Today, the median household income exceeds the income required to acquire a median-priced home by 23.67%.
