Dive Brief:

• An analysis of incomes in U.S. metro areas— and the gap between the top and bottom— explains why home building is accelerating in some areas and is still struggling in others.
• The divide between the 10th richest metro and the 90th – currently that means Boston and Cincinnati – is a 1.6 multiple for the top over the bottom, according to the report that Trulia did for the Financial Times.
• That gap, as wide as it has been since 1969, when the data was first collected, got as low as 1.36 times in 1976.

Dive Insight:

Reports have said the recovery in the home-building market has trended toward high-end houses for which buyers have easy access to credit or pay cash. This data helps explain why certain markets are not experiencing the same recovery and why national numbers for the U.S. are less meaningful than if the gap wasn't so wide.