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| Daren Blomquist |
IRVINE, CA, Aug. 7, 2014 — RealtyTrac®
(www.realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for real estate data,
today released a report analyzing affordability for buying a residential
property in more than 1,000 counties nationwide, which shows that as of the
second quarter of 2014, one-third of the counties analyzed have surpassed their
historical averages for income-to-price affordability percentages since 2000 —
making them less affordable now than they have been on average over the last 14
years.
The report calculated both the percentage of
median income needed to make monthly payments on a median-priced home in each
county in May 2014 as well as the historical trend in each county’s
income-to-price affordability percentage going back to January 2000. It also
analyzed the impact of rising interest rates on affordability, calculating the
percentage of median income needed to make payments on a median-priced home if
interest rates rise by a quarter percentage point, a half percentage point,
three-quarters of a percentage point or a full percentage point.
“The good news is that none of the nearly
1,200 counties we analyzed for the second quarter has regressed to the
dangerously low affordability levels reached during the housing price bubble,
and even if interest rates increased 1 percentage point, only 59 counties
representing 2 percent of the U.S. population would be at or above bubble
levels in terms of affordability,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at
RealtyTrac.
“But the scales are beginning to tip away from the extremely
favorable affordability climate we’ve seen over the last two years, with
one-third of the counties analyzed — representing 19 percent of the total
population in those counties — now less affordable than their long-term
averages.
For a complete copy of the company’s news release, please
contact:
Jennifer von Pohlmann
PR Manager
Office: 949.502.8300 ext 139
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