#1: ZT California has priciest housing for middle managers (976 reads) 作者: 简直, 时间: 2005-9-29 周四, 22:12 — 作者：简直 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
USATODAY.com
Wednesday September 21, 9:33 pm ET
Business executives who transfer from Killeen, Texas, to La Jolla, Calif., are in for home-price sticker shock: more than $1.7 million worth, according to a survey by Coldwell Banker Real Estate released Thursday.
The realty giant examined the price of a typical middle-management home - about 2,200 square feet with four bedrooms, a family room, two-and-one-half baths and a two-car garage - in 344 markets across the USA, Puerto Rico and Canada. (Chart: Comparing home prices within states)
The findings are based on sales through July 2005 and an analysis of previous transactions.
The priciest place to relocate was La Jolla, where the type of home targeted by the study averaged $1.875 million.
The city has topped the list for three consecutive years.
The most affordable? Killeen, where a middle-management home averaged $131,328.
Overall, nine of the most expensive markets were in California.
Greenwich, Conn., at $1.267 million, was the only non-California locale to make the top 10.
The 10 most affordable areas included three cities in Texas and two in West Virginia, along with cities in the Dakotas, Montana, Oklahoma and Michigan.
The average sales price in the 319 U.S. markets surveyed by the firm was $401,767, a 13.3% increase from 2004.
"People want to move where it's warm and where the coasts are," says Jim Gillespie, president and CEO of Coldwell Banker. "As long as more people want to move in than homes are being built, we're going to continue to see an imbalance."
Gillespie noted recent surveys, for example, indicating that demand will continue to outpace supply in California.
He said buyers need to become more creative as housing becomes less affordable in many markets, using such strategies as longer commutes, looking at condos or buying two-unit dwellings and renting one portion out.
The markets closest to the national average sales price are Minneapolis, at $397,133 and Edina, Minn., at $404,150, the survey found.
Fresno, the least expensive market in California, was 3% below the national average price.
Other high-price areas outside California include Boston at $1.26 million, Key West, Fla., at $949,375 and Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Md., at $829,750.
Manhattan is not included in the survey because of the lack of single-family homes.
Overall, in 52% of the U.S. markets surveyed, the typical middle-management home cost less than $300,000.
The most expensive city in Canada was Toronto, with an average sales price of $650,188 in U.S. dollars.
The least expensive Canadian real estate market in the survey was Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, at $117,819.
The average price in Puerto Rico was $311,250.
Due to extensive damage to some markets from Hurricane Katrina, this survey did not include Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
