Report: Forsyth County Has Most Expensive Housing Market In GA

FORSYTH COUNTY, GA — Homeownership is a cornerstone of the American dream — but for many, realizing that dream is prohibitively expensive according to a new Wall St. 24/7 report.

"Today, the typical American home has a price tag of nearly a quarter of a million dollars, according to industry advocacy group the National Realtors Association," the report said. "Not every budget can accommodate housing expenses that high, and in nearly every state there is at least one county where the housing market is even more expensive."

To identify the county with the most expensive housing market in every state, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed home value data from the National Realtors Association as of the third quarter of 2018 for 3,119 counties and county equivalents nationwide. Counties in each state were ranked based on median home value. In 33 states, there is at least one county where over 50 percent of occupied homes cost more than $300,000. Arkansas and Oklahoma are the only states where no county has a median home value above $200,000.

In Georgia, Forsyth County has the most expensive housing market in Georgia, with a median home value of $391,587. The median monthly housing costs with mortgage is $1,813. On the pricier end, homes valued at least $1 million from 2017 statistics comes in at 1.1 percent. Housing units built in 2000 or later make up 51.4 percent of the market. All in all, the report said the median household income in Forsyth County comes in at $96,445.

Home values are typically a reflection of what the residents can afford, and as a result, the counties on this list tend to be high-income areas. Some even rank as the richest county in their state, the report said. That is true for Forsyth County, which has a poverty rate of 6.5 percent, and an unemployment rate around 3 percent as of October 2018.

"Just a few miles northeast of Atlanta, Forsyth County, Georgia, has a median annual household income of $96,445 — more than $43,000 higher than the median income statewide," the report said. "More than half of Forsyth County adults hold at least a bachelor’s degree, qualifying them for more high-level, high-paying jobs. Across Georgia, less than 30 percent of adults graduated from college.

Forsyth County’s population is one of the fastest growing in the country, increasing from 177,103 in 2012 to 211,300 in 2017 — a 19.3 percent rise. That increase is more than five times the nationwide population growth rate of 3.8 percent, and nearly four times Georgia’s population rate of 5 percent."

The years in which many of the houses were built in the counties on this list may partially explain the higher housing costs, the report said.

"According to recent Census data, the median value of a brand new home is $335,400 — 39.5 percent more than the value of the typical existing home," the report said. "In 34 of the 50 counties on this list, the share of homes built in the 21st century exceeds the comparable statewide share. In three counties on this list — Dallas County, Iowa; Forsyth County, Georgia; and Lincoln County, South Dakota — over half of all homes were built after Jan. 1, 2000. For reference, only 17.7 percent of all homes nationwide were built in the last 19 years."

To determine the county with the most expensive housing market in every state, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed median home prices of owner-occupied homes in the 3,119 county and county-equivalents as aggregated by the National Association of Realtors for the third quarter of 2018. It also considered median household incomes, median monthly housing costs for mortgage holders, the share of occupied homes worth over $1.0 million, and year of construction — all five-year estimates from the from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 American Community Survey.