Newsweek recently published an interesting article; What a $300K House Looks Like In Every State. According to Realtor.com, the median listing price for a home in the US is just under $300,000. In the article, each state is listed alongside an example of what $300,000 can buy and the median listing price in each state.
When we consult the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics and enter the categories of Major occupational group and Occupation as “Life, Physical and Social Science Occupations”, we can obtain the proportionate density of states with the highest and lowest employment rates in our sector. As NC falls in the dark green colored states with between 30,350 – 173,100 in “Life, Physical and Social Science Occupations” employment, this map gives us a good range of comparator states with which to test a major component of cost of living – housing!
Based on this brief analysis, we see that NC ranks as the state with the third lowest median listing price in our group of dark green states with the highest density of “Life, Physical and Social Science Occupations”.
Once we begin to overlay the national mean annual wage of $74,370 for “Life, Physical and Social Science Occupations”, we start to get a real-life picture of our purchasing power. For example, let’s assume the following:
- We purchase a home at the median listing price cited in the article.
- We put down 10% of the median listing price as a down payment. This is represented in the Initial Mortgage Amount in the graph below.
- We pay a 4.625% interest rate for a fixed 30-year mortgage.
- We pay no other property taxes, private mortgage or homeowners insurance through our monthly mortgage payment. Note, this is an unlikely assumption as most homeowners pay these taxes and insurance on top of the principal and interest payment cited in the graph below.
- We earn the national mean annual wage of $74,370. Note, this is also an unlikely assumption as the mean annual wage will be more in some states than others. For example, CA’s annual mean wage is $82,510 while TX is $75,130.
With most lenders unwilling to lend more than 36% of gross income (DTI or debt-to-income ratio), we can clearly see the challenge of home ownership for those living in CA. Home ownership may also be challenging in MA, FL, NY, CO and WA since we have not included other taxes or insurance in our computations and DTI covers total debt ratio which includes credit card payments, child support and other outstanding loans (auto, student, etc.).
If you are in the “Life, Physical and Social Science Occupations” segment of the market or have several employees who will be, NC is a top choice for your bottom line!
