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.
Dan Healey is the head of HR at SAP North America.
James Katz is the founder and CEO of Humankind Investments. He is an experienced quantitative equity analyst and data scientist, having worked as an analyst at Vanguard prior to founding Humankind, and holds a PhD from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.
For more than 20 years, Kenneth Saldanha has served the world’s leading P&C, life and reinsurance companies as a trusted advisor and strategy expert. He has helped clients improve their core operations, grow revenue and adopt innovative strategies, even in the most challenging market and economic conditions.
Kenneth now leads Accenture’s global insurance practice, guiding integration of digital, analytics, experience design and workforce solutions, and driving large-scale transformations that help clients reduce structural costs and grow revenue. With his deep understanding of insurance industry economics and market dynamics, he is uniquely positioned to help insurers navigate the challenges of both disruption and convergence with adjacent industries, such as travel, health and freight & logistics.
Kenneth previously led Accenture’s strategy practice in North America. He joined Accenture in 2013 from McKinsey, where he headed the global and North America practices for insurance claims and operations.
Kenneth earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1998. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and the youngest of their three children.
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.
