Economic data and realities can
offer guidance at the regional
level on whether a family is better
off buying or renting. Trulia, a
subsidiary of Zillow that provides
local and regional data related to
housing decisions, conducted a
comparative analysis of major
metropolitan areas that compared
whether any individual region
is better for buying or renting
relative to other regions throughout
the nation.
homeownership, relative to renting,
provides more benefit to the owner in
Indianapolis than it does in 84 of the 100
largest cities). 9
While the actual benefits and costs will
vary from person to person and family to
family, homeownership in Central Indiana
is likely to be a better value than
homeownership in many other
metropolitan areas.
For the Indianapolis metro area, the report
found that it was 40 percent cheaper for
the average person to buy a home than it
would be to rent; among the 100 largest
metro areas, Indianapolis ranked 15th in
the nation for the distance between
buying versus renting (meaning
In Indianapolis, and throughout the
country, renters tend to be more costburdened than homeowners (Figure 7). This
does not imply a causal relationship
between the two, and these figures are
sensitive to income more than tenure
(whether you rent or own). Nevertheless,
there may be advantages to owning
relative to renting over the long term.
Figure 7. Housing Cost Burden by Tenure
30%
25%
20%
23.4%
17.0%
24.0%
17.4%
24.5%
17.0%
24.6%
16.2%
15%
24.3%
15.3%
24.4%
14.2%
10%
5%
0%
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Cost burdened Owners as % of Owner-Occupied Units
Cost burdened Renters as % of Renter-Occupied Units
Source: SAVI Community Information System, www.savi.org
9
The analysis skews toward favoring homeownership; also, the analysis is based on regional averages, which, as
discussed is likely to vary widely from family to family. The analysis is more illustrative in placing the Indianapolis
Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) within the broader national context.
14