Can you afford to live in Bradenton - Sarasota , Florida?
Today's local paper, The Herald, ran the following story about home affordability in the Bradenton - Sarasota area.
MANATEE - Few workers make the six-figure income needed to afford a median-priced home in Manatee and Sarasota counties, an affordable-housing coalition said Tuesday.
A person needs to make at least $109,248 a year to afford a home at December's median sales price of $322,700, the Florida Housing Coalition said in its first Florida Priced Out Report. But none of the 63 local occupations the coalition studied, including teachers, firefighters and police officers, paid even remotely close to that.
"It's just further proof that our work force is rapidly being priced out of the market with the way home prices are going," said Michael Davis, the coalition's executive director.
Based on the income requirement, Manatee/Sarasota's housing market was the fifth least-affordable among the 18 Florida metropolitan areas the coalition studied. Only those in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Naples and West Palm Beach had to earn more in order to afford a median-priced home in their communities.
At the opposite end, the Ocala, Pensacola and Tallahassee metro areas were the most affordable.
The situation was somewhat better for Manatee/Sarasota renters, who had to make $21.06 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the market rate of $1,095 a month. That ranked the region's rental market as the state's seventh least-affordable, with some workers having to work more than 100 hours per week to afford that apartment.
The results didn't surprise local affordable-housing advocates.
"This report shows that all of our service personnel, our work force in general, is in trouble," said Suzie Dobbs, the county's affordable/work-force housing coordinator. "They simply can't find housing at prices they can get a mortgage for."
For example, a Manatee/Sarasota elementary school teacher making $44,199 a year would qualify for a maximum mortgage of $131,255 - more than $191,000 short of what's needed to close on a median-priced home, the state coalition's report said.
Even construction managers, the two-county region's top-paying occupation in the coalition report, don't make enough to be able to completely mortgage a median-priced home.
As a result, a growing number of middle-income workers are seeking financial help from various government programs to buy a home, Dobbs said.
Ryan Wilkins was one of them. Despite working two jobs after moving to Bradenton from more-expensive New Jersey, he struggled for two years to find an affordable place to buy.
"It was pretty hard to find anything in my price range," he said. "I couldn't find anything that was decent . . . it did get very, very discouraging."
He ultimately bought a condominium unit with financial assistance from the county's affordable-housing program.
But it and similar housing-assistance programs are being stretched by stagnant funding and greater demand, officials said.
The $1.7 million Manatee received from the state's Housing Trust Fund this fiscal year was gone in just seven months, said Denise Thomas, the county's housing and community development coordinator. That will grow to $2.3 million in the coming fiscal year, the maximum allowed under a state cap that has generated a huge surplus in the trust fund.
"There's money sitting there that we can't get to," Thomas said. "We would get two to three times more money and be able to help even more people if the cap wasn't there."
A lobbying effort by affordable-housing advocates failed to get the cap removed in the last state legislative session, but Davis hopes the new study will provide more ammunition in the next session.
"I think it'll help make the problem more real, especially to our legislators," he said.
DUANE MARSTELLER
Herald Staff Writer
MANATEE - Few workers make the six-figure income needed to afford a median-priced home in Manatee and Sarasota counties, an affordable-housing coalition said Tuesday.
A person needs to make at least $109,248 a year to afford a home at December's median sales price of $322,700, the Florida Housing Coalition said in its first Florida Priced Out Report. But none of the 63 local occupations the coalition studied, including teachers, firefighters and police officers, paid even remotely close to that.
"It's just further proof that our work force is rapidly being priced out of the market with the way home prices are going," said Michael Davis, the coalition's executive director.
Based on the income requirement, Manatee/Sarasota's housing market was the fifth least-affordable among the 18 Florida metropolitan areas the coalition studied. Only those in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Naples and West Palm Beach had to earn more in order to afford a median-priced home in their communities.
At the opposite end, the Ocala, Pensacola and Tallahassee metro areas were the most affordable.
The situation was somewhat better for Manatee/Sarasota renters, who had to make $21.06 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the market rate of $1,095 a month. That ranked the region's rental market as the state's seventh least-affordable, with some workers having to work more than 100 hours per week to afford that apartment.
The results didn't surprise local affordable-housing advocates.
"This report shows that all of our service personnel, our work force in general, is in trouble," said Suzie Dobbs, the county's affordable/work-force housing coordinator. "They simply can't find housing at prices they can get a mortgage for."
For example, a Manatee/Sarasota elementary school teacher making $44,199 a year would qualify for a maximum mortgage of $131,255 - more than $191,000 short of what's needed to close on a median-priced home, the state coalition's report said.
Even construction managers, the two-county region's top-paying occupation in the coalition report, don't make enough to be able to completely mortgage a median-priced home.
As a result, a growing number of middle-income workers are seeking financial help from various government programs to buy a home, Dobbs said.
Ryan Wilkins was one of them. Despite working two jobs after moving to Bradenton from more-expensive New Jersey, he struggled for two years to find an affordable place to buy.
"It was pretty hard to find anything in my price range," he said. "I couldn't find anything that was decent . . . it did get very, very discouraging."
He ultimately bought a condominium unit with financial assistance from the county's affordable-housing program.
But it and similar housing-assistance programs are being stretched by stagnant funding and greater demand, officials said.
The $1.7 million Manatee received from the state's Housing Trust Fund this fiscal year was gone in just seven months, said Denise Thomas, the county's housing and community development coordinator. That will grow to $2.3 million in the coming fiscal year, the maximum allowed under a state cap that has generated a huge surplus in the trust fund.
"There's money sitting there that we can't get to," Thomas said. "We would get two to three times more money and be able to help even more people if the cap wasn't there."
A lobbying effort by affordable-housing advocates failed to get the cap removed in the last state legislative session, but Davis hopes the new study will provide more ammunition in the next session.
"I think it'll help make the problem more real, especially to our legislators," he said.
DUANE MARSTELLER
Herald Staff Writer
posted by Dan Forbes at
8:01 AM
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