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Philly stays cheap in a pricey region

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In the just-released 11th annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, Philadelphia holds rank as the most affordable metro area in the Northeast corridor. But wait! Burnt-out and penniless NYC transplants have the option of taking their U-HAULs further south on I-95: Baltimore is tied with Philly, too.

Or, if you have more freedom of movement, head to the Midwest. It should come as no surprise that American metropolises aren’t the cheapest places to settle, according to Demographia.

The survey compares metropolitan areas by population size using a price-to-income ratio (also called a “median multiple), and it only considers “major market” areas. This means rural farming communities in Wisconsin weren’t tallied.

Of these major metro hubs with populations over 2 million, only Atlanta received the “affordable” ranking. Even Philly and Baltimore, the two “most affordable” in the ten largest metro areas, scored a 3.7, classifying them in the “moderately unaffordable” category nationwide. On the other side of the spectrum, Washington has been dubbed “seriously unaffordable,” which is slightly better than the “severely unaffordable” (emphasis mine) ranking of New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, and Miami.

Note that the survey includes parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware as part of the Philadelphia metro area. The median price of a home in this area is $231,300, and the median income household income is $61,700. In areas with populations over 1 million, Philly came in 29th most affordable market in the nation. The Detroit area? Still holding down fort as the number-one most affordable major market.