Sonoma County and Housing Affordability

(Graph courtesy of the California Association of Realtors - www.car.org)

This week, instead of talking about how hot the housing market is, or how many offers a home got, I want to share something that I find fascinating and very insightful, The Housing Affordability Index. This can be found on the California Association of Realtors website, www.car.org. This index maps out how much money (on average) a person would need to make to be able to afford a median priced home in a given area. (chart shown above)

             In the first column is the percentage of residents that could afford to buy a median priced home in Quarter 1 of of 2021. Unfortunately for Sonoma County, despite low interest rates, this number has gone down from 32% in 2020 to 27%. You can also see that in Sonoma County, in order to qualify for a median priced home of $742,500, you would need to make about $135,300 per year. This is much less than if you were trying to purchase a home in San Mateo County where the minimum qualifying income is a whopping $337,200 per year (wow!!!) You can also see that Solano County is much more affordable when compared with Sonoma County. To purchase the average priced home in Solano, you would need to make $95,600 per year. 

              However, if you don't make $135,000+ per year but dream of owning a home in the area, hope is not lost! My team and I have helped some amazing families get into condos or homes by being creative and finding off market deals, or utilizing first time home buyer and down payment assistance programs. Where there's a will, there's a way!

Feel free to reach out to me to discuss your options. I would love to help.