Incomes throughout Florida have failed to keep pace with runaway home prices, according to a study released Tuesday by the Florida Housing Coalition in [tag]Tallahassee[/tag]. Since 2003, median home prices in Florida have soared 77 percent as the real estate boom swept the state, but incomes grew a meager 1.4 percent, according to the study. It’s the first of what will become the coalition’s annual report on wages and the cost of housing in [tag]Florida[/tag].

The new [tag]Florida Housing Coalition[/tag] report, however, is unique in that it offers an interactive Web site where you can calculate the affordability gap for more than 60 occupations in 18 metropolitan areas around the state, including West Palm Beach and Fort Pierce. No Martin County areas are included on the site, [tag]www.pricedoutreport.org[/tag]. The Web site also lets you determine the maximum mortgage that’s affordable for each occupation’s income, as well as the number of weekly work hours required to afford a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment at market rate. To afford [tag]West Palm Beach[/tag]‘s median-priced home in 2005 — $390,100 — a worker would need to earn $132,065, according to the report. The median wage in February 2005, however, was only $64,400, according to the report.

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