Real Estate

D.C. Region has Priciest Housing Market in Nation

A new report shows a dramatic gap between housing prices and wages.

Washington metro area residents face one of the nation’s largest gaps between wages and housing prices, according to two recent surveys – and experts are worried it could make the region less attractive to the workforce.

According to the Washington Business Journal, a recent report from ZipRealty, Inc. shows that the D.C. region’s median housing price is about $1.03 million as of Feb. 10, 2013. That’s almost 17 times the region’s median income.

Washington landed ahead of New York City’s popular Brooklyn borough and the bay area in San Francisco.

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ZipRealty came up with their ratio by studying median income and median sales price, the Journal reports. The report considered houses with three to four bedrooms – approximately 2,000 square feet – to be average in size.

In an email to Patch, ZipRealty Public Relations Manager Stacey Corso wrote: "ZipRealty analyzed data on houses and condos of 2,000 square feet or larger because more than two-thirds of homes in the U.S. right now are larger than 2,000 square feet. Also, 2,000 square feet represents a three-bedroom home, according to ZipRealty’s research department."

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Corso said ZipRealty used data from the U.S. Census Bureau for median income.

Housing prices in the region have continued their upward trend since 2000. In the D.C. metro area, the seasonally adjusted price index (measuring the average sale price for single-family homes) for January 2013 was 190.56—that's up from 179.78 in January 2012.

The numbers are calculated based on the repeat sale of existing single-family homes, where the baseline of 100 is the average price as of January 2000.

The high point in the D.C. metro area was in May 2006, when the index hit 251.19.

Arlington County had the most expensive housing market in Virginia in 2012, according to research from Coldwell Banker Real Estate.

In November of last year, the average price of a four-bedroom house was $678,486. Vienna, Alexandria, Ashburn and Fairfax made up the rest of the top 5 priciest places to live in the Commonwealth.


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