It’s official! There are only a few other places better than Scranton / Wilkes Barre to buy real estate property. Many of us knew this all along.
Local industry professionals like Realtors and Mortgage Professionals have seen it coming in the form of increased investment activity from the neighboring states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. We’ve seen residential and commercial property investors from these states come in and buy properties up by the block! These are smart investors who are seeing great gains on their investment
Now, this movement comes to light brought on by a study by the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo. This study was highlighted in an article in the Scranton Times.
The study used an interesting index to measure for this study. They used logic. The study looked at the median income of residents and the prices of homes. The idea was to see what percentage of homes were being sold at prices where they could be afforded by residents earning the median income for the area. According to the article, 81.5% of homes being sold were affordable to residents earning at least the median income. Clearly, most of the real estate inventory is affordable for people in the area.
In NEPA (Northeast Pennsylvania), we had a few things going for us in this study. Median incomes aren’t bad. If you live here, you’ll hear plenty of complaints about our income. It’s been difficult to attract large out-of-town companies to come here and stay. However, we’ve been able to make it happen with companies like Bank of America and Prudential. These companies love our strong work ethic.