My website: www.sandralew.com

Guess unless you want to move to Ohio where homes are within reach for the middle-class we will have to accept the high prices of the west coast. The most unaffordable is not New York City as many may have thought but rather in California's  San Francisco, Los Angeles county and Orange County. Six of the seven least affordable places in the country all land in California. Affordability is better in the Midwest and South. No surprise there.

Where Can the Middle Class Buy a Home?

Real estate news and analysis from The Wall Street Journal 

 Conor Dougherty October 10, 2013, 12:01 AM

 

San Francisco is the least affordable place to be a middle-class home buyer, Trulia says.

If you’re in the middle class and want to buy a home here’s a piece of advice: Move to Ohio (if you’re not already there).

Some 86% of homes in the Akron, Ohio area are within reach of middle-class buyers in the area, the highest share in the nation, according to a report from Trulia, the real estate listings site. The next two cities on the list, with 85% of homes affordable to middle class, are Dayton and Toledo, respectively.

For those of you in the coastal elite who are reading this post for the perverse pleasure of finding out just how unaffordable your city is, you might be surprised to hear that New York isn’t No. 1. San Francisco is the least affordable place to be a middle-class buyer, with only 14% of homes within reach of those making the median San Francisco household income of $78,840, according to Trulia.*

However, we were slightly surprised by the next two most unaffordable places, Orange County and Los Angeles, respectively. New York was the fourth least affordable place to be middle class. After that were San Diego and San Jose and Ventura County.

For those keeping score, that means six of the seven least affordable places in the country are in California.

That said, for all the doom and gloom that’s been piled on the middle class of late, they are still able to buy a home in the lion’s share of U.S. metro areas. Among the 100 largest metro areas, in 87 at least half of the homes were within reach of those making the area’s median household income, according to Trulia. Most of the most affordable places were in the Midwest and South.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2013/10/10/where-can-the-middle-class-buy-a-home/