Strengthening Transit Through Community PartnershipsHow much home you can buy for $450,000 depends mainly on how badly you want to live near the region’s biggest, most prosperous cities.The “H+T Index,” developed by CNT, estimates the share of a typical metro household’s income devoted to housing and transportation costs. In Seattle itself, a household’s housing and transportation costs consume 46 percent of the metro area’s median household income, according to CNT.
Even though median home prices are lower in, say, Federal Way, transportation costs are higher and so the combined costs have the same burden on household income.
“That’s really related to the built environment and what kind of transit system you have,” said Peter Haas, CNT's chief research scientist. “If you have a great transit system and everything is spread out, it doesn’t give you as good a benefit as if you have a great transit system and a dense core.”