Doubling the Bills

The big rise in the purchase price of the average U.S. house (see chart preceding page) only begins to measure how expensive home ownership is becoming; mortgage interest rates, utility bills and property taxes are climbing even faster. As every homeowner knows, the key figure in determining whether a house can be afforded is the total of monthly payments--and in the past six years, the cash outlay needed to buy and maintain what is now a moderately priced house ($35,500) in a middle-class suburb has almost doubled. The national average bills each month on such a house: 1968 1974

Principal and Interest $115.67 $231.76

Real Estate Taxes 25.30 39.35

Heating and Utilities 25.00 34.00

Maintenance and Repairs 10.50 18.00

Total $176.47 $323.11

Housing costs, however, vary so strikingly from one part of the country to another, and even from city to city within the same region as to astonish many families on the move. The reasons are be wilder ingly diverse, but there are some common themes. Generally, prices are lowest in the South and Southwest, where most houses are built without basements, although prices have been rising rapidly in fast-growing Houston. Lack of population growth in St. Louis and Philadelphia and easy access to lumber supplies in the Northwest have held prices down there. On the other hand, high land values--a reflection of population density, strict zoning, building regulations and environmental measures--have inflated building costs on the East Coast and in Southern California. Generous union wage scales help to escalate the price of a house in the New York City suburbs far above the cost of a comparable residence in Denver or Seattle, and home buyers in Boston and San Francisco pay extra for the desirability of those cities. The current average price of a used, single-family house with four bedrooms on a half-acre plot of land in and around 16 major U.S. cities, in rising order of cost:

St. Louis $31,700

Detroit 35,200

Baltimore 36,500

Philadelphia 37,500

Seattle 38,000

Minneapolis 40,400

Dallas 40,600

Denver 41,100

Atlanta 42,900

Chicago 43,400

Los Angeles 46,200

Washington, D.C. 48,000

San Francisco 49,400

New York 50,900

Boston 51,300

Houston 56,100

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