You might think that with the real estate crash, an average person would be able to afford an average home. But not in New York City - and that might mean trouble for the Big Apple.In the New York metro area, an average family making $64,800 a year could afford just 19 percent of homes that sold in the third quarter, according to the Housing Opportunity Index, created by the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo.
That makes New York one of a handful places, including San Francisco and Honolulu, Hawaii, where the vast majority of homes are still out of reach for many locals. Los Angeles is not far behind: the average Angelino could only afford 42 percent of the homes there.
Despite how far home prices have fallen, the disconnect between local housing prices and local incomes could be a sign that, for these cities, the housing recession isn't over.
In contrast, a typical family in Indianapolis could afford almost anything on the market - including 95 percent of the homes that sold in the third quarter.
Nationwide, an average family earning the national median income of $64,000 a year, can afford 70 percent of all new and existing homes sold in the third quarter. That's up from a low of 40 percent in the summer of 2006, when the housing boom was hottest.
