The Determinants of Intercity Home Building Site Price Differences

Intercity differences in the price of owneroccupied housing has become very pronounced in recent years. A sampling of median SMSA owner-occupied home prices, taken from the 1980 census and reproduced in Table 1, illustrates the point. For example, while the median-priced home in San Antonio, Texas, cost only $33,200 in 1980, a buyer of the median-priced home in San Jose, California, would have had to pay over $107,000, an amount more than three times as much.