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Make an average salary? Good luck buying a mid-state home

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (OSBORNE)  --  It’s getting increasingly difficult for someone making an average salary to buy a home anywhere in Middle Tennessee.

The real estate policy group ATTOM Data Solutions is out with their annual home affordability index. The report compares an average salary to the average cost of buying a home in 432 counties nationwide.

Not surprisingly, Williamson Count has the mid-state's least affordable homes. It now takes 53 percent of an average salary to pay for a home there. Wilson County was nearly as bad, with it costing about 49 percent of the average salary to own a home.

ATTOM Data’s Daren Blomquist says it takes 35 percent of the average salary to get into a Nashville home.

“In Davidson County home prices have gone up a whopping 89 percent since the fourth quarter of 2012, which is when we show home prices bottomed out there. During that same time wages have only gone up ten percent.”

Kathy Trawick directs the Tennessee Fair Housing Council. She says Middle Tennessee homes are now selling so quickly, some buyers are getting themselves into financial difficulty.

“By removing your opportunity to think about it and process the situation, you know, ‘Is this the house for me?" sometimes people might not maket he best decisions. It’s kind of like impulse buying to the 10th power.”

ATTOM Solutions says Rutherford County has the area’s most affordable homes at 33 percent of income, but that’s still well above the national average.