|
|
|
|
Most (and least) affordable cities to buy a house
Here are the 5 metro areas where the average American family can afford to purchase a median-priced home -- and the 5 where they can't.
Most affordable: Indianapolis
$519,900 buys a four-bed, 5,000-square-foot home outside Indianapolis.
Median income: $68,100
Affordability score: 94.5%
America's most affordable housing market is the 33rd largest metro area in the United States, with 1.7 million people.
The median family income is fairly high -- $68,100 -- and home prices are a very reasonable median $107,000, according to the National Association of Homebuilders and Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index.
Helping keep home prices depressed is a fairly virulent foreclosure plague: There were more than 16,000 properties with foreclosure filings during the first nine months of the year.
The turmoil in the auto industry, which Indianapolis had been closely associated with, has hurt the city. But increased diversification, which has made pharmaceutical companies, banks government agencies and insurers all important employers, has helped keep job losses in check. The unemployment rate was just 7.7% in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, well below the national rate of 9.8% that month.
NEXT: 2nd place: Youngstown, Ohio
Last updated November 20 2009: 6:37 AM ET
Source: National Association of Homebuilders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index for the third quarter of 2009.
The NAHB judges a home to be affordable if a family making the metro area's median income could devote no more than 28% of their take-home pay toward housing costs.
The NAHB judges a home to be affordable if a family making the metro area's median income could devote no more than 28% of their take-home pay toward housing costs.
More Galleries
Here are the 5 metro areas where the average American family can afford to purchase a median-priced home -- and the 5 where they can't. More
In March, CNNMoney profiled people making personal sacrifices to help others during the recession. Did their efforts pay off? CNNMoney checks in. More
An early peek at holiday ad circulars shows that post-Thanksgiving shoppers can score crazy deals -- like an LCD HDTV for half price, or a Nikon camera marked down 40%. More
Special Offer
© 2009 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy
Live Quotes automatically refresh, but individual equities are delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Market indexes are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET.
* : Time reflects local markets trading time. † - Intraday data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Disclaimer
* : Time reflects local markets trading time. † - Intraday data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Disclaimer
| Copyright © 2009 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use. MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc. Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use. Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET. Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data. Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc.. SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc.. Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC. |
