We've all known for a long time that houses here are among the cheapest in the country, so this isn't exactly new:
What's the big difference between Indianapolis and Columbus?
Try $30,000.
That's how much lower the median price of a house in central Indiana is compared with one in central Ohio.
At a median price of $120,000, homes in the nine-county Indianapolis region are the most affordable of any metropolitan area in the country, according to a National Association of Home Builders study.
Central Ohio's median home price is $150,000.
When the association's researchers figured in median family incomes, central Ohio ranked as one of the least affordable regions in the Midwest. Only Milwaukee, Chicago and Minneapolis rated worse.
What's interesting about the story is even the real-estate experts quoted don't seem to know why Indiana housing is so affordable. More new homes on the market, driving the prices down? Belief that the local economy isn't so good? A culture that has come to expect low prices? Selling too many houses to people who can't afford them? (We also have one of the highest mortgage default rates in the nation.)
The low cost of home ownership isn't really the economic-development benefit it's sometimes touted to be, as in: Come to Indiana and get three times the home! If you're moving here from almost anywhere else, it's true that you can get a much nicer home. But it's such a lousy investment, wtih so little equity built up, that if you move from here to almost anywhere, you'll get much less of a home than you've come to expect.
