Westport ranked third on a list of the top 20 Connecticut towns with the largest gap between median income and how much a homebuyer needs to qualify for a mortgage based on the median sales price of homes in that town.
The list, based on 2005 figures, showed Westport at $206,780, behind only Greenwich at $366,551 and New Canaan at $295,010.
The figures were released by HOMEConnecticut, a new coalition of housing groups, banks and business leaders that is an initiative of the Hartford-based Partnership for Strong Communities.
It said that it plans to find ways to help Connecticut residents afford to buy homes because too many are being priced out of the expensive housing market.
Many families earning the median income in 157 of Connecticut’s 169 cities and towns cannot qualify for a mortgage to buy a home at today’s median prices, the coalition said.
“This is no longer a Fairfield County issue. This is a statewide issue,” said John Rathgeber, president of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.
Housing costs across the state increased 63.6 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to HOMEConnecticut, outstripping wage increases. Meanwhile, Connecticut has lost more workers aged 20 to 34 since 1990 than any other state, the group said.
William Cibes, a former state budget director, said that the state’s high housing costs are hurting many businesses. Companies won’t come to Connecticut or won’t stay because their employees cannot afford to live here, he said.
“We are losing our labor force,” he said. “It puts us in a poor comparable position to attract businesses and jobs.”
HOMEConnecticut is a statewide affordable housing campaign designed to make safe, secure housing attainable for all of Connecticut’s residents.
