Housing Prices Have Hit Bottom

Buying beats renting in 98 of 100 metros according to Trulia!

Thanks to nationwide price declines and rising rents, buying a home is now cheaper than renting one in 98 of the nation's 100 major metropolitan areas. The Midwest has most affordable markets.

The rent vs. buy index is based on a price-to-rent ratio of asking prices to asking rents for properties on Trulia.com between Dec. 1, 2011 and Feb. 29. 2012, after adjusting for property and neighborhood attributes, the site said.

Where is still more affordable to rent than buy??? San Francisco and Honolulu.

Housing Affordability Index hits 42-year high!!

NAR Housing Affordability Index hits 42-year high in January 2012!! The National Association of REALTORS®' (NAR) Housing Affordability Index reached a record high this January 2012 of 206.1. This is the first month since the index's inception in 1970 that the index has hit or passed 200, the group announced this week.

The index, calculated monthly by NAR, is built from the relationship among three data points: median home price, median family income, and average mortgage interest rate. The higher the index score, the greater the affordability.

The index aims to measure the affordability of a median-priced, existing single-family home by a median-income-earning family. An index of 100 represents a family's ability to exactly afford such a home, with a 20 percent down payment and mortgage payments at 25 percent of the family's gross income.

Late 2011 saw a steady monthly rise in the index from June's 172.4, the 2011 low, to 197.9 in December 2011. The index has risen from 169.4 in 2009 to 174 in 2010, and to 184.5 in 2011.