Falling Prices, low mortgage rates put record number of South Floridians within grasp

You could call it the upside of the downturn: Housing affordability in Palm Beach County hit a new high during the first three months of the year.

Thanks to plunging home prices, resilient incomes and low mortgage rates, 77.5 percent of homes sold in the first quarter were within reach of a median-income family, according to an affordability index released this week by the National Association of Home Builders.

That's based on a median home price of $120,000 for houses and condos, and a median family income of $67,600. The last time Palm Beach County homes were this affordable was in early 1999, when 77.4 percent of families could afford the median-priced home.

During the real estate boom, the affordability index showed that fewer than 30 percent of Palm Beach County homes were within reach of typical families. That led to concerns that teachers, nurses, firefighters and other middle-income workers no longer would be able to afford to live here.

Plunging prices are a painful but necessary part of any housing ecovery, economists say.

"At least one piece of the puzzle has returned," Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner said. "Affordability is in place."

Although sales of homes have picked up, the favorable affordability numbers haven't created boom-like conditions.

"Everything is aligned in a straight line to make housing unbelievably affordable," said Douglas Rill, who owns Century 21 America's Choice in West Palm Beach. "You might think that with that kind of affordability, there'd be a line in front of real estate offices. But sadly, that's not happening."

The hangover from the housing party continues to slow sales. Nearly half of homeowners in South Florida owe more than their homes are worth, according to real estate website Zillow.com. And many lenders now require 20 percent down payments from mortgage borrowers.

"Unfortunately, even though homes are affordable, a lot of folks still owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth," Vitner said. "And credit is still severely impaired."

Homes are even more affordable in the Treasure Coast, where 84.9 percent of homes sold in the first quarter were in reach of the typical family, which made $59,600. The affordability index for the Treasure Coast reached 87.8 percent last year.

Florida's return to affordability helps employers attract people to the state, said Tony Villamil, an economist and dean of the business school at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens.

"On the positive side, it's good for the business climate," Villamil said. "On the downside, that reflects a very weak housing market."

The national Housing Opportunity Index reached a record level of 74.6 percent in the first quarter, the National Association of Home Builders said. That meant that nearly three-quarters of new and existing homes sold in those three months were affordable to families earning the national median income of $64,400. Until 2009, the index rarely topped 65 percent.omeownership is within reach of more households than it has been for more than two decades," Bob Nielsen, chairman of the national association, said in a prepared statement. "While this is good news for consumers, home buyers and builders continue to confront extremely tight credit conditions, and this remains a significant obstacle to many potential home sales."

The nation's most affordable housing market is Kokomo, Ind., where 98.6 percent of homes are within reach of a typical family. New York's index of 24.1 percent made it the nation's least affordable market.

~ jeff_ostrowski@pbpost.com