Long Islander's income

[Smash255]

Originally Posted by fyrisle

Smash55 is correct in stating the more current statistics for median income show $89,872 for Nassau and $83,447 for Suffolk but these numbers are much lower than the perception that some people had in other discussions. People were assuming it was around $130,000.

I do believe that even these more recent numbers show that the real estate correction has a ways to go if prices will eventually come back in line with historical trends. City-data shows Nassau's median home price has dropped from $630,000 to about $460,00 but even at this price, it is still 5.5 times the median family income. Historically, it has been closer to three times a family's income.

One thing to keep in mind is the median incomes also include the retired as well as single people in their 20's. A family of four it might be a bit closer to the $130,000 (though I don't think it is quite that high).

As far as the home values, the median value in Nassau is more along the lines of $410,000 IIRC (it was never quite as high as $630,000, I believe that was average and not median). Also keep in mind that mortgage rates are lower than historical levels (and will likely remain lower than that) so that 3 times median income figure might not hold quite as true anymore.

[Redd Jedd]

As the OP pointed out, almost everyone leaves out the entire name of the statistic they quote when they site a “median income” of $89,872 for Nassau County number. Again, that number is actually the statistic of median HOUSEHOLD income. This is the cumulative income of everyone over 15 years old in that household. For many households that includes multiple individuals and/or those with multiple jobs. This is not the statistic of what the median salary is in Nassau County. Tried to find another source for this but it is a little hard to find - although this site Powered by Google Docs has a figure of $46K across all industries for 2005, so the $49K figure may not be that far off.

Not following the general rule of spending no more than 3X the borrower's annual income is one of things that got the housing market in the trouble it is in now.

[specialp]

People on LI work multiple jobs just to get by. I would imagine that the avg household being 90k is about right. The average income is likely around 50k or so. Housing is still unaffordable, but LI has never really been affordable in recent history, so people here just cope with it by having 2+ income homes, and paying way more than 33% of their pay to housing. There was a study recently that showed that only 10% of ppl on LI can afford the avg home by the 33% metric