High Barriers to Entry for First-Time Buyers

Today the Times examines how difficult it is for young, middle-class people to own a piece of New York. The story focuses on the Kinneys, a married couple who had been renting in Boerum Hill, and have been saving for a couple years. They’ve set their price ceiling at $250,000 but have found it impossible to build a nest egg beyond $20,000. Both of the Kinneys are teachers and don’t see how they’re going to save up for a down payment: “Unless you are a lawyer, owning a home is out of the question,” said Mr. Kinney. The article also has some interesting observations about the New York market, such as that Fiserv Case-Shiller projects it’s one of a handful of metropolitan areas where prices “will end up being higher than their prebubble levels, at least relative to local income.” The Kinneys, meanwhile, ended up moving from Boerum Hill to Rockaway Beach, where their $1,600-a-month two-bedroom “costs the same as the dark basement studio they had rented in Brooklyn.”
A Dream of Homeownership, Still Beyond Reach [NY Times]
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