The initiative will cost $3.2 million, and a private contractor – The Manhattan Strategies Group, LLC, and its subcontractor, the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) – will create the database.
“Affordability is much more than just paying the mortgage. It involves other costs like transportation, gas and utilities,” says HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. “A national affordability index will (give homebuyers) better information about the true cost of a home by taking into account its proximity to jobs, schools and other services.”
Donovan says HUD is creating the index to help homebuyers understand the true cost of homeownership. Transportation costs, for example, are not included in most current affordability studies, even though transportation is usually a household’s second-most significant expense.
“Unfortunately, many people believe that to qualify for a mortgage, they have to buy a house far away from their work … but the transportation costs could end up making their total costs more expensive in the long run,” says Shelley Poticha, director of the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities at HUD.
According to a recent study of 28 metropolitan areas done by the Center for Housing Policy and CNT, the average household pays 27 percent of its income for housing and 20.2 percent of its income for transportation. For working families earning $50,000, those two costs account for 57 percent of the household income.
Manhattan Strategy Group (MSG) says it will work for the next two years to create the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index Tool, which HUD will also use to analyze the impact of programs in HUD-supported communities.
© 2011 Florida Realtors®
2 comments:
An overview on the statistical graphs of the annual rate of growth of st petersburg florida real estate.
I think the cost of $3.2 million is pretty much higher than I expected.
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