Working in the public sector is a thankless job. Teachers, who shape young minds into the leaders of tomorrow, get about as much credit as brave firefighters who rush into burning buildings, rescuing victims of faulty wiring or lit cigarettes. Atlanta’s housing market is unsympathetic, it seems. A recent study found firefighters can afford only 36 percent of all homes in the Atlanta market, while teachers can expect to afford 54 percent. The study also found restaurant servers can afford only 12 percent of homes on the market. On the flip side, the analysis by Estately found doctors and computer programmers (at 96 and 82 percent, respectively) pretty much have their pick of local living quarters.
Oh, and astronauts (why not) can afford 68 percent of the homes here.
To figure this out, Estately used Glassdoor’s numbers to discover the average annual salary for these six professions and then determined how much people in each profession could afford to spend on a home (monthly mortgage payments, down payment, property taxes, homeowner’s insurance, etc). Home sales figures for the past six months were also used.
According to the study, teachers in eight major cities including Atlanta make – on average – $56,000 per year; astronauts, $65,000; firefighters, $43,000; doctors, $186,000; restaurant servers, $24,000; and computer programmers, $92,000.
The study appears to have focused on the actual City of Atlanta and not the sprawling metro at large, where servers could surely find a cozy cul-de-sac within budget. As alarming as the numbers may seem for firefighters and teachers, the following chart illustrates how far fewer professions are priced out of Atlanta than in Los Angeles, San Francisco (duh), and even Seattle.
To see the infographics for yourself, click here.
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