ShareSummary of Recent REALTOR® University Presentation
In a Brown-Bag presentation to REALTOR® University, Lisa Sturtevant, Director of the Center for Housing Policy, discussed that the vitality of America’s communities depends on whether the people filling key roles can afford housing. She indicated that renting or buying a typical home in many U.S. metro areas may be a challenge for the police offices, nurses, teachers, janitors and others who provide much of the urban backbone.
Dr. Sturtevant discussed the “Paycheck to Paycheck” program, which analyses housing costs and affordability in terms for over 200 metro areas and 76 occupations. “Paycheck to Paycheck” is comprised of an online, interactive database and accompanying report prepared by the Center for Housing Policy – the nonprofit research affiliate of the National Housing Conference (NHC) – comparing wages for selected occupations with the income needed to buy or rent a home.
An accompanying report, Paycheck to Paycheck: Is Housing Affordable for Americans Getting Back to Work?pdf, explores trends in housing affordability for workers in the five most common jobs in the industry sector doing the most hiring: accountants, groundskeepers, janitors, office clerks and security guards: See the data for 209 U.S. metro areas.
The report notes that over the past year, the income needed to buy a median-priced home dropped by at least three percent in more than half of the metro areas studied, due to a combination of low home prices and falling mortgage interest rates. Credit constraints, difficulty amassing down payments, market uncertainty and other concerns may keep low- and moderate-income workers from buying homes in otherwise affordable housing markets.
The REALTOR® University presentation is available at http://www.realtor.org/videos/realtor-university-speaker-series-paycheck-to-paycheck-tool-highlights-video
REALTOR® University Brown-Bag presentations are open to the public. A schedule is available from Stephanie Davis (sdavis@realtors.org), (202) 383-1033.