The distribution of housing wealth across incomes in the Philadelphia region has grown more uneven in the past decade. The number of high-income owners continued to rise, and the number of middle- and low-income owners shrank further. Michaelle Bond reported the widening disparity for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The local worrisome trend aligns with real estate patterns evident in the country as a whole.

“Homeownership is the biggest source of wealth for many people, for the typical family,” said Gay Cororaton, senior economist and director of housing and commercial research at the National Association of Realtors. “So if you lose homeownership, you lose access to a major source of wealth.”

From 2010 to 2020, the Philadelphia metropolitan area lost 23 percent of its low-income homeowners, and middle-income homeowner numbers fell by 3 percent. On the other end of the economic spectrum, high-income homeowners rose by 79 percent.

Overall, the population of homeowners in the Philadelphia region in 2020 was 41 percent middle income, 31 percent high income, and 28 percent with low income.

Several factors are contributing to the statistical shifts. For one, a number of high-income residential real estate shoppers has been bolstered by Philadelphia’s booming medical and life sciences industries and universities.

Read more about housing wealth and its effect on the residential real estate market in The Philadelphia Inquirer.