Harleysville, Audubon Rank High in Housing Market Study
NEW YORK NY – Harleysville in Lower Salford Township has been deemed in a study released Tuesday (Feb. 22, 2022) as the state’s eighth healthiest housing market, and the same research rates the Audubon portion of Lower Providence Township as the third most affordable housing market in Pennsylvania. Both are the conclusions of Smart Asset, a New York-based financial referral service.
Harleysville’s healthy market
“A healthy housing market,” the service said, is one in which owners “should easily be able to sell their homes with a low risk of losing money over the long run.” It looked at combination of factors – stability, affordability, fluidity, and risk of loss – to calculate index numbers that represented the healthiest markets.
Harleysville earned an index of 80.31, eighth best in the state, it said. The service found:
- Owners there lived an average of 11.9 years in their homes;
- Homes there with negative equity represent 5.8 percent of the market. Such properties are occasionally referred to as “upside down” because they are worth less that what owners owe on them;
- Homes there that have decreased in value over time represent 13.6 percent of the market;
- Homes there that were listed for sale spent an average of 75.2 days on the market; and
- Home costs there represented 18 percent of household income.
By comparison, ranked by the service in first place with a best healthy market index of 97.54 was New Cumberland PA. Its residents, it reported, averaged 13.2 years in their homes; 6.9 percent had negative equity, 11.2 percent decreased in value; listed homes sold in an average 63.5 days on market, and home costs there represented 17.6 percent of income.
Audubon’s affordable housing
The service calculated housing affordability “by determining the monthly cost of owning a home as a percentage of household income” in the area where the home is located. Home costs in Audubon represented 15.4 percent of household income there, it reported.
Only two other areas fared better, it claimed: Greenville PA ranked second, at 15 percent, and California PA, first at 14.8 percent.
Photo by Artur Verkhovetskiy via Deposit Photos, used under license
