We already knew that high cost of living is San Franciscan's top concern right now. New data from real estate aggregator Trulia adds insult to injury: showing that San Francisco's housing market ranks dead last in availability to the middle class, with a meager 14% of homes for sale within the realm of affordability to those with a median household income. San Francisco's metro area beat out the New York and Los Angeles for this position.
Orange County actually came in 2nd-to-last place, with 23% of homes for sale affordable for the middle class; LA came in 3rd-to-last with 24%, and New York came in 4th-to-last with 25%. Keep in mind that these percentages are for metro areas. Manhattan still wins out with only 2.5% of homes for sale affordable to the middle class - the average size of which is 500 square feet. The county-by-county breakdown is also interesting. For those of you always contending that Oakland is San Francisco's Brooklyn, think again. It's actually more equatable to SF's Queens.
If you're wondering how Trulia made these calculations, here are their ground rules: the median household income numbers come from the Census, and then placed under the assumption that a family makes a 20% down payment and will not spend more than 31% of its pre-tax income on housing costs - including property taxes and insurance.
· Where Can the Middle Class Afford to Buy a Home? [Trulia]
· Where Even the Middle Class Can't Afford to Live Any More [The Atlantic Cities]
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