In an ongoing study, the center compares median incomes and the age of housing across the country, saying those are the two key factors that determine a home’s value.
The newest information appears in the latest issue of Tierra Grande, an official publication of the center, in an article by Dr. Ali Anari, a research economist.
His data for 2007 indicate that the median home value in Texas is 62 percent the value of the median-priced home in the nation. The home price-to-income ratio in Texas is 2.0, meaning it takes two years’ worth of the median household Texas salary to buy a median-priced house in the state. For the nation, the median home requires three times the median salary. In the Temple-Killeen-Fort Hood metro area, the ratio is 1.8, so it takes a little less than two years making the median pay to buy a house.
“The high correlation between home values and personal income explains why average Texas home prices have been so strong as home sales fell over the past two years,” Anari explains in the article.
