Slow wage growth snag for buyers

Affordability of homes a rising concern, report shows

South Florida’s housing market remains stable, though affordability is becoming a concern, according to a report Wednesday from mortgage company FreddieMac.

The tri-county region scored 88.3 in January on Freddie’s Multi-Indicator Market Index, a 15 percent improvement from a year ago.

The report analyzes the health of housing markets across the nation by considering home loan applications, affordability, mortgage delinquencies and unemployment.

A composite score of at least 80indicates that a market is stable. An ideal score is 100.

“Despite a stronger jobs market and declining unemployment, wage gains have not kept pace with house prices, putting a pinch on homebuyer affordability,” Len Kiefer, deputy chief economist for Freddie Mac, said in a statement. “In the top 100 metro areas MiMi tracks, Los Angeles and Honolulu have elevated payment-to-income indicators and [South Florida] is very close to elevated.”

Prices in South Florida have been on the rise since 2012. Local Realtor boards reported lastweek that February median prices for existing single-family homes in Palm Beach and Broward counties fell just below $300,000 — too high for many first-time buyers. MiamiCounty’s median was $270,221.

Meanwhile, a first-quarter report from the RealtyTrac research firm said median home prices in Broward County rose 11 percent in a year while average wages increased only 3 percent.

The median price in Palm BeachCountyrose5percent and wages 2 percent, while in Miami-Dade the

median increased 9 percent while wages rose 4 percent.

RealtyTrac said it’s mostly lowinterest rates keeping South Florida homes affordable for now.

“I haven’t heard frommy agents that there have been buyers turned down for lack of income,” said Jim Heidisch, broker at Campbell & Rosemurgy in Pompano Beach. “But that will happen if prices keep going up andw ages are stagnant.”

A shortage of homes for sale has helped push prices higher, but housing analysts expect values to level out once more properties hit the market.

South Florida had the best composite score of the eight Florida metros covered in the Freddie Mac report. Tampa, Lakeland and Jacksonville had scores below80. But Orlando, Tampa and Cape Coral all ranked among the national leaders in improvement froma year ago.

Nationally, Denver has the most stable housing market with a score of 99.8. Austin, Texas, was second at 99.1.