Blowing in the Windy City

From the Chicago Tribune, we have Marilyn Kennedy Melia writing about Area less affordable for buyers.

If the median home price here was $270,900, the housing affordability index in Chicago would be 100, notes Celia Chen, housing economist at Economy.com

An index of 100 means that a Chicago-area household earning the median income here of about $68,000 could afford the median-priced home, assuming a 20 percent down payment and market interest rates, Chen explains.

Having lived in Chicago for 8 years, I'm having a great deal of trouble believing that median income number. I would've expected it closer to the $55K range in 2006.

But, I'm having trouble finding the statistics so I'm going to have to go on what evidence I can find.

First up, from the Trib itself, we have a graph from 1999:


There's no way in hell that Chicago incomes doubled in 7 years!

Second, here's a PDF from a poverty study group in Chicago:


In short, $68K is pure fantasy!

But hey! This was the same paper that published the Dewey Defeats Truman headline!