A study conducted by WalletHub concluded that New York City is among the worst places in the country to buy a house, ranking 264th out of 300 cities in the study. This is in large part due to its real estate market, which ranked 246th.
The data collected from the cities in the study to determine the results was based upon 17 key indicators of housing market attractiveness and economic strength, graded on a scale from 1-100. The data set ranges from median home-price appreciation to job growth.
The ten key indicators related to the real-estate market were home value forecast, median home-price appreciation, median days on the market, share of seriously underwater mortgages, ratio of rent price to sale price, foreclosure rate, share of people delinquent on their mortgage debt, vacancy rate, share of young homes and building-permit activity.
The seven key indicators related to affordability and economic development include housing affordability, maintenance affordability, population growth rate, job growth rate, unemployment rate, underemployment rate and median credit score.
New York City ranked 201st in share of seriously underwater mortgages, 266th in median days on the market, 195th in median home-price appreciation, 298th in job growth rate, 20th in the percentage of delinquent mortgage holders, 287th in home price as the percentage of income and 138th in maintenance costs as the percentage of income. It also ranked as the fifth-worst in affordability and economic environment.
According to WalletHub, the data used to create the rankings were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Council for Community and Economic Research, Zillow, TransUnion, Chmura Economics and Analytics, The National Association of Realtors, ATTOM, a property data provider – U.S. Home Equity and Underwater Report, ATTOM, a property data provider – U.S. Foreclosure Market Report and WalletHub research.
