Courtesy of Mish.
Here’s an interesting article thanks to Jed Kolko, Chief Economist at Trulia Trends via Washington Post Wonkblog: The most expensive housing markets in the U.S. are also the most liberal.
The relationship between housing affordability and politics in the US is startlingly strong as these charts by Jed Kolko shows.
Median asking price in dollars per square foot is on the vertical axis. Margin for Obama over Romney in the 2012 election is on the horizontal axis.
With the exception of Orange County California, all of the high priced counties voted for Obama.
The Washington Post notes ….
Nine of the 10 bluest markets had median home asking prices above $130 per square foot. All of the 10 reddest markets had prices below that. In the dark blue markets, housing cost almost twice as much ($227 per square foot) as in the red ones ($119). In metro Washington — this is not just the District — the average home asking price was about $177.
Trulia notes …
Households in blue markets tend to have higher incomes. But those higher incomes are not enough to offset higher home prices. Our middle-class affordability measure, which reflects the share of homes for sale within reach of a median-income household, is significantly lower in bluer markets. Furthermore, blue markets have lower homeownership and greater income inequality than red markets.
Sorted Data
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