Bloomberg BusinessWeek: Fishers Indiana is America’s Best Affordable Suburb

BusinessWeek just announced it’s findings that Fishers Indiana is “America’s Best Affordable Suburb”.  Their focus was not on luxury but rather on family. Our take in a second.

They looked for places that where families can live well for less and that have good schools, low crime, and good commutes.  Each town in consideration had to be within 25 miles of the most populated city in the state, have populations between 5,000 and 60,000, median family incomes between $51,000 to $120,000 and lower than average crime rates.

They also weighted factors based on “livability (short commutes, low pollution, green space), education (well-educated residents, high test scores), crime (low personal and property crime), economy (high job growth, low unemployment rate, high family income), and affordability (median household income, cost of expenditures)”.  They weighted affordability highest and penalized suburbs with high crime rates, divorce rates, and those that lacked racial diversity.

The study found Fishers average family income to be $108,086 and the average home value to be $174,438.   The Fishers town manager said that, Gary Huff says property taxes are the lowest rate in Hamilton County and that the “…very diverse housing market enables people to buy within their income levels”

Our Take

Our team has lived or currently lives in Fishers and finds it a great place to live.  While we haven’t visited many of the suburbs in the study, we can agree that housing is very affordable and literally everything is at your fingertips.  From great family restaurants to new shopping centers and child care, most conveniences are a mile or two away.  While traffic on I-69 north and south during rush hour is a drag, the great schools and housing affordability make up for it.

Just this week Livabilty.com rank Fishers as a great place for golf.  And last year, BusinessWeek also ranked Fishers as the best place to raise kids in Indiana.

To give an idea of the housing affordability, here are the current stats for single family homes in Fishers:

Active Listings: 514

Average Days On The Market: 86

Minimum Price: $74,500

Maximum Price: $5,900,000

Average Price: $304,822

Minimum Square Footage: 960 sqft

Maximum Square Footage: 12,694 sqft

Average Square Footage: 3,329 sqft

Average $/sqft: $92

http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/blogs/mmatyanowski/9637/show/