by Calculated Risk on 10/03/2006 12:11:00 AM

The NY Times summarizes a new Census Bureau report: Across Nation, Housing Costs Rise as Burden

Click on map for National data.

The burden of housing costs in nearly every part of the country grew sharply from 2000 to 2005, according to new Census Bureau data being made public today. The numbers illustrate vividly the impact, often distributed unevenly, of the crushing combination of escalating real estate prices and largely stagnant incomes.

While many of the highest home values were on the coasts, in places like Southern California and Manhattan, many of the biggest jumps in the percentage of people paying a burdensome amount of their income for housing occurred in the Midwest and in suburbs nationwide, making it clear that the housing squeeze has reached deep into the middle class.
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"Housing prices have gone up much more than incomes have," said Christopher Jones, vice president for research at the Regional Plan Association in New York City. "Clearly, you can’t sustain that sort of imbalance over the long run. There’s only so long that housing prices can go up without sustained increases in income to support them."