First-Time Home Buyer Index Offers Rare Piece of Good News for Bay Area Parents in Economic Downturn

May 1, 2009

The decline in home values has caused challenges for many Bay Area families, but new data from the California Association of Realtors, just posted on Kidsdata.org, show an upside: The percentage of households that can afford to purchase an entry-level home in the Bay Area grew from 2007 to 2008.

Most Bay Area counties saw double-digit growth in this measure of housing affordability. Despite this improvement, the Bay Area lags behind the overall state in housing affordability. In all six Bay Area counties, 40 percent or fewer of households can afford to purchase an entry-level house, compared to 51 percent for the state.

The lack of affordable housing is among the biggest economic challenges facing middle- and low-income families in California. A family that spends much of its income on housing has less money available for food, clothing, health care and other basic needs. Escalating housing costs can also make a family more vulnerable to homelessness if a parent loses his or her job.

We've included a customized graph from Kidsdata.org, that shows data for six Bay Area counties and California. This is the type of chart or graph kidsdata.org provides as a public service. Other charts available include median home price and fair market rent.

Also recently updated on kidsdata.org are other measures related to family economics that have an impact on children and their health, including family income, poverty and unemployment.

Use Kidsdata.org to Get Facts for Your Stories
Any time you need data for stories about children and families, www.kidsdata.org can be a resource for you. The site is a wide-ranging clearinghouse of trustworthy information, offering nearly 300 indicators about the health and well being of children in California and the Bay Area. Data are continually updated, and, depending on the source, available for cities, school districts, and counties, along with the state. You can customize data by year, locale, ethnicity, age and more (options depend on the data you're viewing), and view the results as maps and tables, or bar, trend and pie graphs. Also available are local summaries of data for each Bay Area county and for the hundreds of local cities and school districts, as well as for 20 demographic groups.

Contact Andy Krackov, assistant vice president for programs & partnerships, at (650) 736-0677 or andy.krackov@lpfch.org, if you have any questions about these newly posted data.

To sign up for monthly updates about news, events and data regarding Bay Area children, visit http://www.lpfch.org/signup/index.html.