Indianapolis, Youngstown Top 1st Quarter Affordable Markets List

Midwest markets dominate the nation's top 20; 17 of 20 California metro areas land at the bottom of the list.

By Robb Crocker

The metro areas of Indianapolis-Carmel and Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pa., tied for the nation's top major affordable U.S. housing market in 2007's first quarter according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI). Indianapolis is at the top of the U.S. metro markets with populations above 500,000 for the seventh quarter in a row. Both top metro markets are in the Midwest as are 14 others out of the top 20 metro markets with populations above and below 500,000. Of the least affordable markets, California claims 17 of the 20 metro markets with populations above and below 500,000.

"The latest HOI shows that about 44 percent of new and existing homes that were sold in the United States during this year's first quarter were affordable to families earning the national median income," said NAHB President Brian Catalde in a released statement. "This is up from 41.6 percent of homes sold in the final quarter of 2006, and is likely the result of lower house prices as well as the very favorable financing conditions that existed at the beginning of this year."

According to the HOI, 89 percent of new and existing homes sold in the first quarter in Indianapolis cost an average of $116,000; the median family income there is $63,800. In contrast, in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Irvine, Ca. area, only three percent of homes sold were affordable to families earning the median income of $61,700; the median sales price for a home in the Los Angeles area is $525,000.

The Los Angeles region landed at the bottom of the list for the ninth quarter in a row. Since the first quarter of 1991, a California city has been the least affordable metro area to live; San Francisco set the standard, spending 43 quarters at the bottom of the HOI (42 times in a row from the first quarter of 1991 to the second quarter of 2001).