Study: Home Shoppers Here Need More Money Than 3 Months Ago

Chancery StationD.C.-area home buyers need about $78,503 to purchase a home around here, according one survey.

The price of real estate may come as no surprise, but the numbers are more than $15,000 higher than they were by the same company’s estimate in February.

HSH.com, a publisher of mortgage and consumer loan information, says it took the National Association of Realtors’ first-quarter data for median home prices and HSH.com’s first-quarter average interest rate for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages to determine how much of your salary it would take to afford the base cost of owning a home — the principal, interest, taxes and insurance — in 27 metro areas.

“We used standard 28 percent ‘front-end’ debt ratios, and a 20 percent down payment subtracted from the NAR’s median-home-price data to arrive at our figures,” says HSH.

HSH says “things were more affordable in D.C. during the first three months of the year. Like Denver, Washington, D.C.,’s housing market has had a reputation of stable, consistent growth. But since the second quarter of 2013, prices have been falling, taking the required salary down with it.”

The Washington area comes in sixth place, behind San Francisco (where one needs an income of $137,129), San Diego, New York City, Los Angeles and Boston.

HSH says that the median price of a home in the metro area is $358,900.

In Reston, here is what about $358,900 will get you:

A 2 BR, 2.5 Ba townhouse on Whisperwood Glen ($350,000)

A 3 BR, 3.5 BA townhouse on Twisted Oak Drive ($369,900)

A 2 BR, 1 BA condo overlooking Lake Anne ($349,900)

A 2 BR, 2 BA condo at Stratford House ($349,00)

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