DENVER (KDVR) — Owning a home in Colorado is not nearly as affordable as it used to be.
The price of homes in Denver has more than doubled over the last decade, and similar trends have been seen across the state. But while average home prices have been increasing across Colorado, wages and salaries have not kept up at the same rate.
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A recent report from the Common Sense Institute of Colorado , a think tank focused on free enterprise, examined how the cost of homeownership has changed over the years compared to how wages have changed . The results varied from county to county, but the numbers show you have to work a lot more these days to afford a mortgage.
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CSI’s vice president of policy and research, Chris Brown, told FOX31 that CSI uses economic data from sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to create the “misery index,” which tracks mortgage rates and home prices to determine the cost of owning a home.