New Jersey and Florida account for almost half of the 50 U.S. counties whose housing markets are most vulnerable to the economic effects of the coronavirus, an Attom Data Solutions report said.
Attom ranked 483 counties across the country based on the percentage of housing units receiving a foreclosure notice in the fourth quarter, the number of underwater properties in each county and the percentage of local wages required to pay for major homeownership expenses.
Thirty-six of the top 50 most vulnerable counties had median home prices in the $160,000-to-$300,000 range, the report noted.
Of the 10 most vulnerable counties, six are in New Jersey, including Sussex at No. 1 and Warren at No. 2.
"It looks like the Northeast is more at risk than other areas," Todd Teta, Attom's chief product officer, said in a press release. "As we head into the spring home buying season, the next few months will reveal how severe the impact will be."
Among the New Jersey counties that would be most affected, five are in the New York metropolitan area: Bergen, Essex, Passaic, Middlesex and Union. However, of the four counties in New York that Attom considered to be most vulnerable, only Rockland was in proximity to New York City.
Nathan Place is a national reporter at American Banker. A native of New York City, he has worked for more than a decade in both print and video journalism. He got his start in Beijing, where he worked as a copy editor and reporter for China Daily. He then returned to New York, where he earned his master's degree from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Since then he's worked as a reporter for the New York Daily News and The Independent, as well as a video producer for the Daily Mail, the Daily Beast and Men's Journal.
Victoria Zhuang is the professional development reporter at Financial Planning. She has a bachelor's degree in comparative literature from Harvard University and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia Journalism School. Before joining FP, she freelanced as an arts and culture writer while working in the Boston nonprofit world for several years. She also completed a Dow Jones News Fund business reporting internship at American Banker. Victoria covers how wealth management firms maintain their competitive edge and how financial advisors can achieve excellence serving clients of all wealth levels. She is a native of New York City.
Dan Shaw is Financial Planning's wirehouse and bank channel reporter, covering the intersection of wealth management, banking and brokerages. His reporting background in regulation and disciplinary matters informs his coverage of compliance, recruiting and strategic shifts across the wealth management industry.
His reporting on advisor movement and recruiting at large financial firms earned a Folio Eddie Award.
His reporting includes:
- How headline EBITDA multiples are misleading RIA sellers
- Firms make billions from 'cash sweeps.' Could AI take that away?
- When everybody's a 'family office,' what's the term really mean?
Before joining Financial Planning, Dan served as managing editor of the Wisconsin Law Journal for seven years. He has also covered banking and local government in Indiana and spent two years on the business news desk at The China Daily in Beijing. His work has earned multiple awards from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association for business and legal reporting.
Based in Milwaukee, Dan is also a longtime banjo player in a bluegrass band that performs across the upper Midwest.
For New York City proper, all five boroughs were in the middle of the list: Staten Island was ranked 161, Queens was 271, Manhattan at 312, Brooklyn at 320 and the Bronx was 327.
Most of the Florida counties considered at risk are in the northern and central portions of the state. But Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale, is also on that list.
There were four counties in the metro Chicago area on the list were Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will in Illinois. Cook County, which includes Chicago proper, is ranked 53rd most vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the only California county on the 50 most vulnerable list is Shasta. Los Angeles County was No. 276. The Bay Area counties were also in the bottom half of the list.
At the other end of the spectrum, 10 of the counties where the housing market is least vulnerable to the coronavirus are in Texas. Seven are in Wisconsin and there are five in Colorado.
King County in Washington, where Seattle is located, was the 20th least vulnerable county according to Attom.
