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Article: Home prices ease a tad: Affordability index shows tiny gain in favor of first-time buyers.
- Article from:
- The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, MD)
- Article date:
- March 7, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 The Baltimore Sun. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Jamie Smith Hopkins
Mar. 7--First-time homebuyers take heart: It's not quite so awfully, terribly hard to get your foot in the door right now.
The Maryland Association of Realtors' housing affordability index improved slightly to 45.7 in January, the group said yesterday, which means that the typical first-time buyer still had less than half the income needed to afford a typical starter home in the state.
A reading of 100 would mean a first-time buyer had exactly enough income to buy, assuming a 5 percent down payment and a monthly mortgage payment that consumed no more than a quarter of pretax household income.
In December, the ...