{"id":1446,"date":"2013-03-09T12:47:36","date_gmt":"2013-03-09T19:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickdebruhl.com\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2013-03-09T12:49:35","modified_gmt":"2013-03-09T19:49:35","slug":"average-new-car-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/?p=1446","title":{"rendered":"Average New Car Price"},"content":{"rendered":"

The average price of a new car last year was $30,550, and apparently\u00a0my neighbors can’t afford it.<\/p>\n

\"Camaro<\/a>
How Much Car Can You Afford?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That’s the word from Interest.com’s 2013 Car Affordability Study<\/a>. It ranked 25 cities on the abilities of the people who live there to purchase a new car.\u00a0The authors of the study\u00a0started with something they call the 20\/4\/10 rule. That\u00a0says you should put down 20%, take out a loan that lasts no more than four years and not use more than 10% of your household’s gross income to make the payment and pay insurance.<\/p>\n

The results of the study show that only people living in Washington DC can afford to buy a new car. The median wage in our nation’s capitol is $86,680. Using the 20\/4\/10 rule the people living there can afford a car worth $31,940. Every other city in the study fell short.<\/p>\n

The other end of the scale is Tampa Bay. People with the median salary can only afford payments to buy a car worth\u00a0$14,516, leaving them last on the list of 25 cities.<\/p>\n

While I may love the sunshine and outdoors that Phoenix offers, our median salaries aren’t so hot. The result is that we finished 21st on the list. The 20\/4\/10 rule says\u00a0we can only afford the payments for a car worth $17,243.<\/p>\n

\"Who<\/a>
Buying a New Car in Washington DC Infographic (courtesy interest.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of course, the results are a little skewed. Washington DC’s great incomes are swallowed up by the price of an average home. According to this article,<\/a>\u00a0it’s currently $437,500, which means you\u00a0 can only afford the new car if you don’t have a house. No wonder everyone uses mass transit,\u00a0they can’t afford to put anything in their garage. Both Phoenix and Tampa Bay have average home prices around $114,000 which actually leaves enough room to make a car payment after the mortgage is paid.<\/p>\n

Just for the record, I like the 20\/4\/10 rule. It’s a great way to make sure your car payment doesn’t run you over.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The average price of a new car last year was $30,550, and apparently\u00a0my neighbors can’t afford it. That’s the word from Interest.com’s 2013 \n [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collectorcarinformation","category-misccarthoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27JFw-nk","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carcentrick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}