Friday, March 27, 2015

Philadelphia is overpriced, according to Forbes.



Philadelphia gets called lots of things by national media outlets. But overpriced? That’s what Forbes.com says about the region’s real estate.

The magazine’s website looked at largest U.S. metro areas, all with populations of 600,000 or more, evaluating housing affordability using fourth quarter Housing Opportunity Index from the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo. That quarterly index weighs median prices for homes sold against median income levels to determine the percentage of homes that are affordable to residents making median income.


Philadelphia finished 24th out of 25 on the list, with 69.4 percent of housing affordable to residents making the region’s median income of $75,807. The fourth quarter media sale price was $212,000.

The study also found that certain costs were ranked above the national average: Groceries (by 16 percent); utilities (24.4 percent); transportation (5.4 percent); and health (1.3 percent).

New York was ranked 4th on the list with 24.7 percent of housing affordable to residents making the region’s median income of $65,488. And while many people have fantasized about moving to Honolulu, the fact that it topped the list might give pause to that notion. The median home there costs $509,000, but the median salary is just under $83,000. So only 35.3 percent of housing is actually affordable to its residents.

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