Home | Newsletter | Advertise
loading...

DC Has the 12th Least-Affordable Housing Market in North America

  • November 27th 2017

by Nena Perry-Brown

✉️ Want to forward this article? Click here.

DC Has the 12th Least-Affordable Housing Market in North America: Figure 1
A home that sold in Shaw earlier this year.

While home price growth in DC proper seems to have slowed as 2017 winds down, the housing market in the city still has a relatively high barrier for entry for those with modest means. Now, a new study zooms out even further to show just how burdensome the market is.

Point2 Homes’s new study on housing affordability concludes that the District has the 12th least affordable real estate market in North America out of the 50 most-populous cities. With a median sales price of $570,000 and a median family income of $75,628, DC’s affordability ratio comes in at 7.5, qualifying the city’s market as “severely unaffordable” by the International Housing Affordability Survey’s standards.

Vancouver is by far the least affordable market on the continent, with an affordability ratio of 17.3; Manhattan comes in second with a ratio of 15.6. Using census data, the affordability ratio is calculated by dividing the median sales price by the median family income.

Correction: A previous version of this article erroneously stated that Vancouver’s housing prices are reasonable; rather, the median home prices in Vancouver are lower than those in Manhattan and San Francisco.

See other articles related to: affordability, housing market, housing prices

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc_has_the_12th_least-affordable_housing_market_in_north_america/13292.

DC Real Estate Guides

Short guides to navigating the DC-area real estate market

We've collected all our helpful guides for buying, selling and renting in and around Washington, DC in one place. Start browsing below!

First-Timer Primers

Intro guides for first-time home buyers

Red Flags Revealed During a Home Inspection Top 5 Tax Breaks For Homeowners Tax Relief for DC Homeowners
Condo Fee Tutorial What is a Rent Back? 10 Ways To Tell If a Home Renovation is Well Done
Obtaining a Basic Business License For Your Rental What is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage? The Splitting the Rent Formula
How Much Cash Do You Need to Buy a House? Is This Condo Building Financially Healthy? Interest Rates and Mortgage Points
The Scoop on Mortgage Insurance

Unique Spaces

Awesome and unusual real estate from across the DC Metro

The Most Intriguing Loft in DC The R Street Firehouse DC’s One-Room House
Dupont Circle’s Old Frat House To Become Alley Home Best Transition From a Garage To a Home The Roundhouse
Tilden Gardens Restaurant-Turned-Home Hits Market Next Week Logan Circle’s Most Intriguing Garage Frank Lloyd Wright Goes Green in Kensington
Sears Bungalow Gets a Modern Makeover Old Town General Store Becomes Three-Level Home Making the Most of a Skinny House
A Studio 27 Renovation on Capitol Hill Once a Carriage House, Now a Home The Bank that Became a Home
From Pie to Hooch to Heroin to Home The Live-Aboards of Gangplank Marina A Treehouse with Rock Creek Park As A Backyard
Modern Tranquility in Sperryville Saddle Up For Stable Living Throwing a Curve at 550 Square Feet
A Modern Hilltop Retreat Tilden Street Restaurant Becomes Spacious Home Focus on Design: A Vastu Unit at 22 West
The DC Area’s First Net Zero Home A Yankee Goes Green DC’s First Carbon Neutral Home
Eco-Friendly Alley House Off H Street The Gym, The Stables and The Firehouse