NORTH FULTON COUNTY — Panelists for the North Fulton Improvement Network’s housing summit Feb. 20 made one thing clear, many people cannot afford to buy a home in the region.
The Improvement Network, formed in 2014 as a poverty task force, is a community think tank that supports public and private solutions to workforce housing, income and employment, transportation, child well-being and food insecurity.
The six cities making up North Fulton — Alpharetta, Johns Creek, Milton, Mountain Park, Roswell and Sandy Springs — are some of the most desired places to live, work and raise a family in the United States.
Jack Murphy, chair of the North Fulton Improvement Network and senior account manager at the Metro Atlanta Chamber, compiled statistics from the Federal Reserve in St. Louis to chart regional housing availability.
The NFIN divided the North Fulton population by generation, Generation Z (ages 15-24); millennials (ages 25-44); Generation X (ages 45-64); and baby boomers (ages 65 and over).
With a median income of $91,522, the affordable housing price for millennials is $443,943, according to the Fed’s data for Fulton County.
Murphy said North Fulton has three homes available at that price, and only 48 rental units on hand at a price of $2,299 a month.
“We have to be more intentional about these things,” Murphy said. “The fact that we don’t have more workforce housing impacts every one of us with congestion [and] reduction in business services.”
For more than 150,000 North Fulton residents, ages 15-44, with a median income of less than $100,000, there is little to no inventory for starter homes or apartments, Murphy said.
He also pointed to the growth of high-income households, earning more than $200,000, and decline of workforce-income households, earning less than $75,000, since 2015.
Murphy said…
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