Buying Is More Affordable Than Renting In These Major Urban Areas

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In just over half of U.S. counties it is more affordable to buy a home than to rent one, according to a study released yesterday by the national property data analysts at ATTOM Data Solutions. However, the trend reverses when looking at high-density counties, which means in most of the places where people choose to live it is generally less expensive to rent than buy. However there are a handful of locations around the country where there are both large populations of people and homes that are still more affordable to pay a monthly mortgage on rather than rent to a landlord. Here are seven of them along with median home prices:

• Miami-Dade County FL: $349,250
• Broward County, FL: $330,000
• Wayne County (Detroit), MI: $110,000
• Philadelphia County, PA: $225,000
• Hillsborough County (Tampa), FL: $239,950
• Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), OH: $135,000
• Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), PA: $163, 250

The report looked at average weekly wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to find out income levels and then used rental data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. For sales data ATTOM used publicly recorded prices for homes purchased from January through November of 2019.

It is important to note they assumed a 3 percent down payment (along with property tax, homeowner’s insurance and private mortgage insurance) when calculating the average monthly payments by homeowners. Since they compared only the sales prices of the homes—not the types of homes—there is a big difference between what properties are being purchased in each city. Philadelphia, for example, with sales prices of $225,000 is going to be mostly condos while place like Wayne County (Detroit) and Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) will be a lot of single-family homes for nearly two-thirds the price.

To see how your county ranks or to have fun with the interactive map, head to the published results on the ATTOM website.