DFW Ranks As The 20th Least Affordable City In The Country
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Real estate website RealtyHop has just compiled a list of least affordable US cities according to their data, and DFW ranks in as the 20th least affordable city in the country.
The top spot was taken by New York City.
Researchers with RealtyHop say that DFW has fallen by a little more than 1% in the affordability ranking from last year.
Shane Lee is a data scientist with the company and said, "From what we know people have been moving into North Texas from California and other states and this kind of migration is pushing up the overall housing trends we are looking at. So home prices have gotten up."
She says of all the counties in North Texas, Dallas is the least affordable one.
Lee explains the measure is taken by analyzing household incomes and the price of a house.
Furthermore, Lee explains, incomes aren't keeping up the rising cost of living.
Lee spoke about the counties in their report, concluding that "Collin is the most expensive. Collin and Rockwall are the most expensive, but when it comes to housing affordability Dallas is the most unaffordable and that's because people in Dallas county make less than those in Collin or Rockwall."
The average cost of a house in DFW is around $360,000 according to most expert estimates, and it continues to climb.
Lee said as the cost of living to income gap widens, homeownership is becoming less attainable for hopefuls.
She said you can expect DFW to show up at the top of least affordable lists for the foreseeable future because of the high demand and low inventory for homes in North Texas.
However, Lee said, a raise in federal reserve interest rates could change things.
When that happens, things could get back to a more normal growth trend in DFW by the end of this year.
Lee said, "It's most likely that we are going to see a more reasonable year over year trend going forward. Maybe 5% to 10%. That's reasonable - but that is not to say home prices will stop rising, because the demand is still there."
