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SOURCE: Nashville Business Journal
AUTHOR: Joel Stinnett
Nashville is home to some of the largest employers of nurses in the country, but for nurses actually working in the “nation’s health care capital” it has become increasingly difficult to buy a house.
Nashville home prices have risen by 75% since 2008, from a median price of $161,191 to $285,000, according to a new study by real estate data firm PropertyShark. That increase is the third-highest rate among the cities studied by PropertyShark, trailing only Boston and San Francisco.
During the same period, the average nursing salary grew by 6%, according to the report. In 2008, it took a nurse 2.8 annual salaries to buy a home in Nashville; today, that number is 4.5 annual salaries, launching Nashville into the study’s “seriously unaffordable” category.
To see where Nashville ranked among the 10 toughest home-buying markets for nurses, check out the slideshow with this story.
The average price for a home in Nashville rose by $20,000 from 2017 to 2018, while a local nurse made $63,830 on average in 2018, according to the study. That increase represents 31% of a nurse’s 2018 income.
Only Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco had a larger home-price increase as a percentage of a nurse's income over the studied period, with San Francisco seeing a 105% increase.
Schools and businesses across Middle Tennessee have a direct impact on the nursing profession across the country. Nashville is home to the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, which graduated 370 students last year, its largest class in the school’s 108-year history, according to its website. The city also houses the headquarters of HCA Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: HCA), which employs more than 94,000 working across the company’s 185 hospitals and recently purchased one of the largest nursing schools in the country.