Homes And People

Eight hundred thousand dollars is certainly not an unheard of price in the world of residential real estate, as prices shoot up in hot markets such as New York, the District of Columbia, and the San Francisco Bay area. But what that amount buys in San Jose, a main node of Silicon Valley and its soaring estate prices, drew a second look: a debilitated, burned shell of a home on a small overgrown lot of the type your parents might have warned you to stay away from. The median home value in San Jose is $1,078,300. That's up 23.9% over the past year, and is predicted to rise 8.4% over 2018. The fact that severe fire damage only bumped that average down to $800,000 says a lot about the area's market, where available housing is sparse and residents prioritize proximity to their employment. PS: I just checked about an hour ago, so by the time you read this article know that the house is already under contract. I guess Metro Denver and Centennial prices are not that high after a...

There is nowhere in this country where someone working a full-time minimum wage job could afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment. Downsizing to a one-bedroom will only get you so far on minimum wage. Such housing is affordable in only 12 counties located in Arizona, Oregon and Washington states, according to the report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. You would have to earn $17.14 an hour, on average, to be able to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment without having to spend more than 30 percent of your income on housing, a common budgeting standard. Make that $21.21 for a two-bedroom home -- nearly three times the federal minimum wage of $7.25. The minimum hourly wage required to afford rent on a two-bedroom apartment, of course, depends on where you live -- ranging from a low of $11.46 in some counties in Georgia to a high of $58.04 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The most expensive state for housing is Hawaii, where workers would need to make $35.20 an hour to afford ...