ST. LOUIS–Just 10% of some of the best-known homes from well-known television shows and movies would actually be affordable to their supposed occupants, and only four would be rentable based on their characters’ incomes, a new analysis has found.
“Many people look to TV and movies as a chance to relax and immerse themselves in another world,” said Clever Real Estate in releasing its findings. “While most viewers have no trouble accepting a universe full of ghosts, dragons, aliens, crime empires, or other outlandish plots, there’s one factor that may seem particularly unrealistic when their mortgage or rent is due: the main characters' homes.”
‘Overwhelmingly Unaffordable’
According to Clever, Hollywood’s big- and small-screen homes are “overwhelmingly unaffordable” for real people working the same jobs in the same cities as the supposed occupants.
Clever said it analyzed data on salaries, home prices, property tax rates, and insurance rates from the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Bankrate, the Tax Foundation, Rocket Mortgage, and Home Bay, as well as a variety of informational sources on pop-culture homes, to arrive at its conclusions.
‘Fraction of Required Income’
“In many cases, characters make just a fraction of the required income, including Mikey’s father from The Goonies, Uncle Phil and Aunt Vivian from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,’ and Carrie Bradshaw from “Sex and the City,” Clever said.
The homes in Roseanne and That '70s Show are the only two properties affordable for their occupants to own, Clever reported, while the four that would be rentable to the fictional occupants would be the homes on Roseanne, That '70s Show, Twilight, and 10 Things I Hate About You.
“Breaking Bad” straddles the line for both, while The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Modern Family, and Poltergeist could also potentially be rented, depending on the characters' exact salary,” Clever said.
Additional Findings
Other findings, according to Clever:
- Homes valued at a million dollars or more account for 16 out of the 20 properties on the list (80%). A majority (55%) have an estimated listing price of $2 million or higher.
- Only Roseanne, That ‘70s Show, and Breaking Bad had homes valued below the national average of just over $363,000.
- Eleven homes (55%) were supposedly paid for with a single income. In those cases, none of their residents could afford to buy them, and only two — “Twilight” and “10 Things I Hate About You” — could afford to rent them in real life, Clever said.
- In its restored state, the home from “The Notebook” would be the least affordable to Noah and Allie, who earn just 7.2% of the income required to buy it and 9.9% of the income required to rent it, according to Clever.
- In dollars, the largest gap between occupants’ incomes and the salary needed to buy a home is The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where Uncle Phil and Aunt Viv are an estimated $2,465,665 short.
- Tony Soprano’s New Jersey home has the highest statewide effective property tax rate at 2.23%, roughly $48,121 per year.
- The lowest tax situation is found in The Notebook, where Noah and Allie’s South Carolina estate is responsible for a statewide effective average of 0.57%, or $14,406 annually.
- The highest-earning household among TV and movie homes studied was Full House,” though it takes four earners to bring in the estimated $435,380 in annual income.
- The lowest was The Goonies, where Mikey’s father, Irving, likely earned just $46,230 per year based on current salary rates as a museum curator.
The full report can be found here.