Many of the health care workers, police and teachers that communities rely on for vital services can’t afford to buy homes, and some even have trouble covering rental costs, a new study found.
The Center for Housing Policy, the research affiliate of the National Housing Conference in Washington, D.C., found that a working family needed an annual income of $84,957 to qualify to purchase a home valued at $248,000, the median price nationally in the third quarter of last year.
Yet the median salaries of many workers were below that, the study found.
It said, for example, that registered nurses earned an average of $58,640 last year; elementary school teachers, $47,104; police officers, $45,780; licensed practical nurses, $37,127; retail sales people, $24,597; and janitors, $23,724.
The study, released Wednesday, looked at workers in 60 different occupations in some 210 communities. On the rental side, it said, nursing aides couldn’t afford to rent a typical one-bedroom home in 80 of the metro areas or a typical two-bedroom home in 147 of the areas. For retail sales persons, the typical one-bedroom home was unaffordable in 78 of the metro areas, and the typical two-bedroom home was unaffordable in 162 of the metro areas studied, it said. Barbara Lipman, research director at the center, said the study suggests that communities should be worried about attracting and retaining good workers.
“These are people who provide basic services,” she pointed out. “In the health care field, we know that some hospitals and clinics are having trouble filling their ranks with qualified people, and one reason is that people can’t afford to live in these communities.” The study used wage data from Salary.com, a compensation Web site, and home price data from the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors. It assumed that to purchase a home, a family had to put 10 percent down for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage; it also assumed that the family would spend no more than 28 percent of household income for mortgage, property taxes and insurance.
On the Net: National Housing Conference: http://www.nhc.org
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.
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June 24th, 2008