[Photo by Flickr user takomabibelot]
Millennials looking for cheap places to rent or buy might have some success in the greater D.C. area, but they almost certainly won't within city lines. RealtyTrac put out reports pinpointing the least and most affordable housing markets for millennials and D.C. comes in the top fifteen on both the least affordable list for buying and the least affordable list for renting. The District clocked in as the twelfth least affordable renting market and the ninth least affordable buying market.
That D.C. was called out for being expensive on all fronts seems right but we have to question the methodology/point out a few surprises on the "Least Affordable Rental Market" list. In addition to looking at factors like number of millennials in a city and median household income, RealtyTrac seems to have made the assumption that all millennials live in group houses or large apartments, because they looked at the average monthly rent of a three-bedroom property. As such, cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia somehow outranked the District and San Francisco (yes, really) on the least affordable rental market list. But apparently Baltimore residents on average spend almost half of their income on rent. Remember that the next time your Baltimore friends start bragging about their cheap rent.
On the flipside, if millennials wanted to rent or buy in D.C.'s suburbs, that's apparently easier to do. The fifteenth most affordable place to buy in the country is Prince George's County in Maryland. That ought to be good news for people who want to stay close to the University of Maryland or see how Prince George's Plaza gets rehabilitated. On the other side of the city line, Arlington is shockingly the second most affordable place in the country to rent with residents only spending an average of 22.56% of their income on rent.
· Most Affordable Housing Markets For Millennials [RealtyTrac]
· Least Affordable Housing Markets For Millennials [RealtyTrac]
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