Late last year, Orlando, FL-based InCharge Education Foundation, a non-profit financial education organization, examined 314 metropolitan areas of varying sizes to determine their financial fitness based on five factors:
Employment opportunities. Wages and salaries produce most of a household's personal income and that makes employment an important financial success indicator. Greater financial fitness is associated with areas with higher employment opportunities. You typically can't buy a home without a job.
Real personal disposable income. The survey defined disposable income as total personal income minus current taxes. It's not enough to have a job, but a job that provides sufficient income goes a long way toward making that monthly mortgage payment. If the area is a low tax area, there's more disposable income.
Credit worthiness. If there's enough disposable income to cover expenditures and debts, chances are households stand a better chance of maintaining high levels of creditworthiness. The study used 2003 Equifax average Beacon credit scores to determine creditworthiness, including how well consumers paid expenditures and debts and debt-to-income ratios. Credit scores are a primary factor who applying for a mortgage.
Levels of savings. With the down payment on a home one of the greatest stumbling blocks on the path to owning a home, savings is an important factor for achieving home ownership and, in the study, an important indicator of financial wellness. Savings buys financial security, says InCharge. Domestic deposits held or accepted in FDIC insured commercial banks in 2003 were used to measure this factor.
Refinancing activity. Refinancing is connected to financial worth, home value appreciation and reflects the ability to convert non-financial assets -- like a home -- into money that can be used to decrease debt or to spend or invest in capital improvements or investments that will deliver higher returns.
People who live in cities scoring high in these five areas generally may have a better shot at securing housing, but living in areas high in fiscal fitness doesn't guarantee home ownership. It remains up to the individual to capitalize on favorable economic factors.
"It's interesting you mention this connection. I had not thought of that, but you are right. Your personal financial fitness, because of these five factors, it really affects nearly every move you make in your life. If you are trying to apply for a job, employers might see your creditworthiness. If you are looking to buy a house or rent an apartment these factors will affect you," said Trish Wexler, spokeswoman for the foundation.
So which areas are most financially fit?
Generally, among the top 10 in each of three categories (large, population more than 500,000; mid-sized, population from 200,000 to 500,000; and small, population under 200,000), the study found:
Three states -- Wisconsin (6), California (4), and Minnesota (3) -- account for almost half the total of 30 top areas. Wisconsin and California alone account for one third of the total.
Fifteen states are represented in the three Top 10 lists. Of those, eight states have multiple metropolitan areas represented.
Cities with major state university communities are well represented: Madison (University of Wisconsin); Minneapolis-St. Paul (University of Minnesota); Boulder (University of Colorado); Burlington (University of Vermont); Bloomington-Normal (Illinois State University); Iowa City (University of Iowa); Fargo (North Dakota State University); Columbia, Missouri (University of Missouri) and Salt Lake City (University of Utah). Many of the other communities (particularly the metropolitan areas of New York City, San Francisco and Chicago) have multiple major institutions of higher learning.
In some cases, more than one of the individual "primary" metro areas used for the study are within larger "combined" metro areas, meaning there is a high level of financial fitness across the broader urban community. Examples include the San Francisco Bay Area and adjoining portions of Northern California (all four California communities), the Delaware Valley area around Philadelphia (Trenton and Wilmington) and metropolitan New York City (NYC, plus Nassau-Suffolk, Long Island, and Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon in New Jersey).
A group of contiguous states in the upper Midwest -- Wisconsin (6), Minnesota (3), Illinois (2), Iowa (2), North Dakota (1) and South Dakota (1) -- has half the top 30 communities.
More specifically, here's a look at the most and least financially fit communities in the large metropolitan area (population more than 500,000) category.
Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a
contemporary digital news service that really hits home.
The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services.
The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home.
Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News.
Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.
He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications.
In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.
Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a
contemporary digital news service that really hits home.