In today’s cool link edition, we have a new study by the site Demographia that offers a housing affordability comparison for more than 90 markets across 8 different countries/places around the world. What is different about this study is that the comparison is done including a housing cost to income ratio, meaning that it takes into account local incomes versus housing prices. That makes it much more accurate in terms of an overall market comparison.
Columbus ranks fairly well, overall, along with Ohio’s other 2 main markets in Cincinnati and Cleveland. Despite all the local complaints about housing becoming unaffordable, relative to just about everywhere else in the US, Ohio markets are actually inexpensive. That doesn’t mean that housing costs aren’t rising quickly or that more and more people aren’t being priced out of buying and owning a home, because that’s definitely happening and certainly an increasing problem. It just means that the problem isn’t quite as bad locally as it is in most other places.
The housing market update May 2014 report for the Columbus area, courtesy of Columbus Realtorscontinued to show the 5-month long trend of sales being down. As with the previous 4 months, the main reason was high demand coupled with historically low supply.
As for when this situation may change seems hard to guess. The rate of construction for single family homes shows no real signs of improving anytime soon, while renting continues to be the dominant choice right now.
