Sunday, September 2, 2007

Forbes Includes Cleveland Real Estate on Their Affordability List

There was a very good article in Forbes this week. Matt Woolsey reports about the affordability of housing stock in certain areas of the Country; and more specifically, certain cities. His description of affordability makes sense. The short version is, the median price matches the medium income. He points out that even if you don't have any money saved this year, ....it would take just two years of gross salary to become a homeowner...."

That means two years of saving for a home, which is reasonable and matches what my mortgage 'peeps' tell me. He was referring to Indianapolis at the time, but here are the other cities he included on the list for affordable homes:

Cleveland, Ohio
Indianapolis, Indiana
Detroit, Michigan
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Atlanta, Georgia (this one surprises me, their salaries must be high enough to fit the criterion)
Greensboro, North Carolina
Cincinnati, Ohio
St. Louis, Missouri
Dallas, Texas
Austin, Texas

Our median income is somewhere around $57k -- according to the article. Does anyone have stats to back this up or corroborate? It sounds high to me. They list the median sales price of homes here as $122,900. That does sound about right. While it is not the best time to list a home for sale right now, it sure is a good time to buy one in the Cleveland area.

Forbes on line has a slide show that also includes the median home prices for each community, along with photos.

The more I think about it, I thought our median income was below $30k, otherwise how would we have been voted one of the poorest cities? Sometimes (!!!) when you read an article you just can't take it on face value, I know, you all already know that!

Peace Out - 3C