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BUSINESS Saturday 9 March 2019
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Home affordability watch: Priciest and cheapest time zones

By HOLDEN LEWIS Here, in the country’s most
NerdWallet expensive metro area, a
Associated Press buyer of a typical home
Cities in the Pacific time would get a $1 million mort-
zone have the least-afford- gage after a 20 percent
able housing in the country, down payment.
and the Central time zone MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE
has the most-affordable MOST AFFORDABLE: EL
housing. PASO, TEXAS
Each quarter, NerdWallet Median home price:
calculates the home af- $157,900
fordability for 178 metro- Median household income:
politan areas, matching $44,416
the list of metros for which Principal and interest pay-
the National Association of ment: $671 (18.1 percent of
Realtors publishes median monthly income)
home prices. This quar- While most of Texas is in the
ter, NerdWallet sorted the Central time zone, El Paso
metro areas by time zone, is so far west that it’s in the
highlighting differences in Mountain zone. The me-
affordability. dian household income is
NerdWallet compared me- modest, but so are home
dian household incomes prices.
and median home prices, In this March 6, 2018, file photo people walk along a path in front of a row of homes in San Jose, LEAST AFFORDABLE: BOUL-
assuming a 20 percent Calif. DER, COLORADO
down payment. A place Associated Press Median home price:
with high incomes and low NerdWallet surveys. (Hono- Median household income: same share of income as $592,300
home prices is more afford- lulu, two time zones farther $63,617 the least affordable hous- Median household income:
able for buying a home west, has the second-least- Principal and interest pay- ing market in the Central $80,834
than an area with low in- affordable homes in the ment: $1,183 (22.3 percent time zone. Principal and interest pay-
comes and high home country. NAR’s quarterly of median monthly in- LEAST AFFORDABLE: SAN ment: $2,518 (37.4 percent
prices. price survey doesn’t in- come) JOSE-SUNNYVALE-SANTA of monthly income)
Here are the most and least clude cities in Alaska.) In Kennewick-Richland, a CLARA, CALIFORNIA Boulder has been called
affordable metro areas in PACIFIC TIME ZONE median-income household Median home price: $1.25 “the most expensive non-
each time zone of the con- MOST AFFORDABLE: KEN- buying a median-priced million resort town in Colorado,”
tiguous U.S. in the fourth NEWICK-RICHLAND, WASH- house and putting 20 per- Median household income: and the city’s leaders have
quarter of 2018, compiled INGTON cent down pays 22.3 per- $117,474 been searching for ways
using data from the Nation- Median home price: cent of that income on the Principal and interest pay- to make housing afford-
al Association of Realtors, $278,400 (national median mortgage’s principal and ment: $5,313 (54.3 percent able for middle-income
the U.S. Census Bureau and price: $257,600) interest. That’s roughly the of monthly income) households.q

How the bull run altered the list of most valuable US stocks

Associated Press the most-valuable U.S. ly out of the picture today.
When this bull market was company title with valua- They’re all among 25 most
born 10 years ago, just one tions of around $800 million valuable U.S. companies,
of the most valuable com- or higher. and all but AT&T are
panies in the market was a The explosion of value in in the prestigious 30-mem-
technology stock. Now, it’s those four stocks reflects ber club of the Dow Jones
four out of five. the great amount of cul- Industrial Average. And
Back in March 2009, the tural influence, wealth and they’ve all had their share
biggest companies were power that has been accu- of change.
familiar names with long mulated by big technology Berkshire Hathaway rounds
histories in traditional indus- companies over the past out the top five most valu-
tries like oil (Exxon Mobil) 10 years. And Facebook, able companies today.
and makers of detergent which didn’t even become Edging out Facebook in the
and other household prod- a publicly traded company valuation contest, Warren
ucts (Procter & Gam- until 2012, today is the No. 6 Buffett’s sprawling compa-
ble). In this Sept. 4, 2018, file photo a Nasdaq employee monitors most valuable company in ny continues to defy cat-
There is, however, one market activity in New York. the U.S. with a valuation of egorization.
company that’s among Associated Press nearly $500 billion. While it still owns sizable
the most valuable today zon, and Google’s parent counts for most of Apple’s The roster of the most valu- stakes in other companies
that was also among the company Alphabet. At the revenue, helping Apple to able companies at the bull such as American Express,
Big Five back then: Micro- beginning of the bull mar- become the first publicly market’s birth is a window Coca-Cola and Wells Far-
soft. ket, Apple’s iPhone was just traded company worth into what the economy go, it also owns outright a
These days, technology two years old and Google more than $1 trillion last looked like a decade ago: number of big operating
companies dominate the had just released its An- year. Amazon quickly fol- Exxon Mobil, Walmart, Mi- businesses including the
top five, as they do the droid operating system for lowed suit. Both now trade crosoft, Procter & insurer Geico and the Bur-
market overall. After Micro- smartphones. well below that level, and Gamble and AT&T. lington Northern Santa Fe
soft, there’s Apple, Ama- Today, the iPhone ac- jockey with Microsoft for Those companies are hard- railroad.q