West Chester is becoming a victim of impulsive home-buying as people are tempted by historically low mortgage rates, according to the 2017 Home Overleverage Report published by WalletHub.

Analysts at WalletHub have researched which cities – “cities” is obviously loosely defined since West Chester is not a city – have the most overleveraged mortgages by comparing median mortgage balances in 2,533 cities against median income and median home value.

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The site first calculated the ratio of median mortgage debt to median income. It then looked at the ratio between median mortgage debt and median home value in each city. Each ratio was given a score of between 0 and 50 points, with 50 points going to the city with the highest ratio. The overall Home Overleverage Score was reached by adding the two scores.

This showed that West Chester was in the 99th percentile of the most overleveraged cities, with a score of 44.33. This is based on a median mortgage debt of $226,840, median house value of $313,700, and median income of $16,716. This results in a mortgage debt-to-income ratio of 1,357 percent, and mortgage debt-to-home value ratio of 72 percent.

However, West Chester is not alone in the Top 25 as other Pennsylvania communities – Beaver Falls, McKees Rocks, and Reading – also made the list.

Read more of the report at WalletHub here.

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