LOS ANGELES, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Homebuyers in Los Angeles, the second largest city of the United States, must spend more years than residents in other cities to save enough money for a down payment, a new study showed.
According to the study release Tuesday by SmartAsset, an online hub for consumer finance information, an average L.A. resident would need to save for 6.93 years to afford a 12 percent down payment or more than 11 years to afford a 20 percent down payment.
"This will take homebuyers almost two years longer than in the 10th-ranking San Diego (4.96 years) for a 12 percent down payment and more than three years (8.26 years) for 20 percent," the study said.
SmartAsset used median income figures and assumed that workers would want to save 20 percent of their income each year for either a 20 percent and 12 percent down payment on a median-priced home in 50 major cities in the country.
The median home value in Los Angeles is around 812,800 U.S. dollars, and that number has gone up by more than 115,000 dollars since last year when SmartAsset last did the same study while the median household income is 697,200 dollars, according to the study.
The study also found that homebuyers in Los Angeles had to save roughly six times longer than those in the bottom-ranking Detroit as the median household income in Los Angeles was less than double that of Detroit.
Unsurprisingly, many other California cities were near the top of the list, with San Francisco landing at No. 2, meaning homebuyers will have to save for just shy of 11 years (10.72 years) for a 20 percent down payment.
Oakland (No. 3) and Long Beach (No. 5) buyers will need to save for 10.32 and 9.39 years respectively to have a 20 percent down payment on a median-priced home. San Jose and San Diego were listed at No. 6 and No.9.
Only four other cities outside of the Golden State stood on the top 10 list, including New York (No. 4), Miami (No. 7), Boston (No. 8) and Seattle (No.10).
San Francisco has the highest median home value with 1,306,400 dollars in the study and New York is only 685,700 dollars, almost 10,000 dollars less than Long Beach, a neighboring city of Los Angeles. ■
