2009 Housing & Wages Report

The latest “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Housing and Wages in Vermont” in now available.
According to the April 28 press release distributed by John Fairbanks, VHFA, this year’s report found:

• The median purchase price of a home in Vermont has remained stable in the last year, at $200,000.
• A Vermont household would need an annual income of $63,000, as well as $14,000 for a downpayment and closing costs, to afford that home.
• The median household income in Vermont is just under $52,000, enough to afford a $163,000 home.
• The Fair Market Rent for a modest two-bedroom home is more than $900 a month, and more than half of Vermont’s workforce earns less than the $36,550 needed to afford that rent.
• Vermont’s rental housing market is the tightest in the nation, and its homeownership market is the fourth-tightest.

The report also identifies the current housing wage on a county-by-county level. The housing wage is the amount a family would have to earn to afford a 2-bedroom fair market rent apartment. In Washington County the 2009 housing wage is $16.04, up from $14.67 last year.

A copy of the report is available for download from the Housing Awareness Campaign’s website at http://www.housingawareness.org/publications/housing-wages-2009.pdf. For additional housing data visit: housingdata.org.

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