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Home > Real Estate > Archives > 2006 > May > 18 > Entry

Affordability squeeze eases — but only a little

By Jeff Ostrowski | Thursday, May 18, 2006, 03:57 PM

A new study says the housing affordability squeeze eased ever so slightly in the first three months of the year.

The National Association of Home Builders’ Housing Opportunity Index says the typical Palm Beach County family could afford 30.5 percent of the homes that traded hands in the first quarter. That’s up from 30.4 percent in the fourth quarter.

NAHB says the Palm Beach County median home price rose to $295,000 in the first quarter from $289,000 in the fourth (it includes condos and single-family homes, which aren’t combined in Realtor reports). And it says median family income rose to $64,400 this year from $61,850 last year.

In the Treasure Coast, NAHB says the typical family could afford 22.7 percent of the homes that sold in the first quarter, up from 22.1 percent in the fourth quarter. That’s based on a median home price of $255,000 (up from $245,000 last quarter) and median family income of $54,600 (up from $52,450 last year).

I crunched the numbers a different way for a story in Tuesday’s paper and, like NAHB, found homes grew a tad more affordable in Q1.

Indianapolis remained the nation’s capital of affordability: 90 percent of homes sold there were affordable to a typical family. Los Angeles, where fewer than 2 percent of homes were affordable, was the toughest housing market to crack. Check out the full NAHB report here.

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