There is a new map going around exposing the most expensive cities in the US to live. 4 out of 5 of the most costly places to are in Commiefornia (go figure).
These are not ordinary "million dollar homes", but regular middle class homes that cost $1 million or more to live in. This is due to massive debt insolvency, unpunished corruption within the market place and local governments as well as too much beurocracy which kills industry and growth.
Here are the Top 10 MOST EXPENSIVE cities to live in the US today:
Rank | City | % of $1mm homes | Median home price
#1 | San Jose, CA | 53.81% | $1,069,000
#2 | San Francisco, CA | 40.03% | $891,000
#3 | Los Angeles, CA | 17.23% | $622,000
#4 | New York, NY |11.81% | $454,000
#5 | San Diego, CA | 10.55% | $563,000
#6 | Seattle, WA | 9.90% | $461,000
#7 | Boston, MA | 7.95% | $459,000
#8 | Washington, DC | 5.27% | $395,000
#9 | Miami, FL | 3.79% | $267,000
#10 | Denver, CO | 2.65% | $391,000
archive.fo
visualcapitalist.com
Comparing against incomes, of course, is important. It's surely easy to find places where home prices are at rock-bottom levels — in places with depressed economies.
In this case, however, we'll be looking at incomes in relation to housing prices, and it is not at all a given that places with good job markets must also have unaffordable housing.
Texas, for example, has for years had a substantial amount of employment growth. Yet according to the Brookings report, the state has numerous metro areas with "low" and "very low" price-income ratios on housing.
The focus here is on middle-income families, and on for-purchase housing. Low-income households and renters face a different set of challenges, but even middle-income households may daily be told through the media that housing in the United States is quickly becoming unaffordable. Except those articles and news clips tend to focus on housing in places like Seattle, or along the California coast. And there's no arguing with the assertion that places like that are "unaffordable" for many middle-income people.
And as the Brooking article notes, and as I've noted, the lack of affordability in places like California can often be blamed on state and local government measures designed to limit the construction and diversification of housing. Zoning laws and other regulatory barriers to new housing production have decimated housing affordability of housing in many coastal cities. Cities like San Francisco and Seattle have essentially become playgrounds for the wealthy in which existing homeowners fight tooth and nail any attempt to allow sizable amounts of new housing construction. They do this, they tell us, to preserve "the character of the neighborhood." But what they're really doing is using government regulations to drive up the prices on their own real estate, while driving lower-income people further and further out into the periphery. Oh sure, these Progressive guardians of the local "quality of life" might allow a handful of subsidized housing units to be built. After all, somebody has to make your cappuccino or do your dry cleaning. But the overall effect is to ensure few people can afford to move in.
This issue, however, is far less prominent in the un-stylish cities of the interior where city officials still welcome new construction and new housing — and where there's a greater abundance of less-expensive land.
archive.fo
zerohedge.com
