Salaries Can´t Compete with Rising West Palm Beach Housing Prices
A recent study by the Center for Housing Policy, a coalition that advocates affordable housing, showed that most West Palm Beach housing isn’t within the economic reach of its citizens.
The coalition studied the incomes for more than 60 low to moderate income jobs, such as teachers, janitors, accountants, firefighters and other city workers, and “examined housing prices for nearly 200 metropolitan areas from the fourth quarter of 2003 to the first quarter of this year.” The study found that salary increases for these professions are far too low to keep up with the ever increasing price of homes.
The least affordable places to live were New York, San Francisco and Boston, while the most affordable were in the Midwest. But even cities that used to be considered affordable are now slipping out of the average American Joe’s reach, among which appear Tulsa, Minneapolis and West Palm Beach.
The sluggish wages of low to moderate income families and the rapid appreciation of West Palm Beach housing mark a growing disparity. The median price of West Palm Beach housing, currently at $245,000, has jumped approximately 32 percent since 2003. In 2003, a family would have needed a yearly income of $57,600 to qualify to buy median priced West Palm Beach housing, but now they need a minimum annual income of $77,600.
This $20,000 jump puts a lot of average professions way out of the running when it comes to buying a house locally. School teachers and police officers, near the higher end of the scale, only make about $40,000. Nurses earn on average $36,000, and childcare workers are earning little more than $20,000 a year.
The coalition studied the incomes for more than 60 low to moderate income jobs, such as teachers, janitors, accountants, firefighters and other city workers, and “examined housing prices for nearly 200 metropolitan areas from the fourth quarter of 2003 to the first quarter of this year.” The study found that salary increases for these professions are far too low to keep up with the ever increasing price of homes.
The least affordable places to live were New York, San Francisco and Boston, while the most affordable were in the Midwest. But even cities that used to be considered affordable are now slipping out of the average American Joe’s reach, among which appear Tulsa, Minneapolis and West Palm Beach.
The sluggish wages of low to moderate income families and the rapid appreciation of West Palm Beach housing mark a growing disparity. The median price of West Palm Beach housing, currently at $245,000, has jumped approximately 32 percent since 2003. In 2003, a family would have needed a yearly income of $57,600 to qualify to buy median priced West Palm Beach housing, but now they need a minimum annual income of $77,600.
This $20,000 jump puts a lot of average professions way out of the running when it comes to buying a house locally. School teachers and police officers, near the higher end of the scale, only make about $40,000. Nurses earn on average $36,000, and childcare workers are earning little more than $20,000 a year.
