One in 4 middle-income new homeowners — twice as many as a decade before — are buying into cost-burdened situations.
The share of middle-class Americans who are buying wallet-squeezing homes has more than doubled in the previous 10 years.
Almost 30% of middle-class homeowners bought homes with monthly payments costing more than 30% of their income in 2022, an NBC News analysis of Census Bureau data found. That’s more than twice the share from 2013, with experts warning it leaves many households with less money for groceries and emergencies and less able to get ahead in the future.
That “cost-burdened” benchmark — in which a household devotes over 30% of income to housing costs — is a widely used measure of affordability for both homeownership and renting. The Census Bureau measures housing costs against it, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development has used it for decades.
And most of those willing to take on the additional risk will look back at their decision positively. Shit’s not getting any cheaper.
When the options are rent you can barely afford or a mortgage you can barely afford ,the choice is obvious .
More importantly, can you lock in a mortgage payment that won’t change much, vs. a rent that may skyrocket in the next 6 months? And sometimes a mortgage can be less than rent (although there are other costs to be considered). In our situation we were very lucky to be able to leverage money and jump on a house before things got stupid, and if we hadn’t taken that jump I’m not sure where we’d be right now since rent prices got crazy while we’re now still paying a decent monthly price.
Then there’s the unlucky few like myself who are perpetually single and stuck in a state where I spend half my income on renting someone’s garage, but a house would be almost 80% of it…
I literally just hit an income level where I could start looking for a house and then fucking COVID ruined everything…
Rent, where someone else is held responsible for maintenance and plumbing/electrical work and landscaping? Maintenance ain’t cheap.
It can be, especially if you have steady tenants.
I know ex landlords of mine that barely had to pay out anything over the course of years, while they made 5 figures/year.
Even as a home owner, you can have a string of luck. I have relatives with 20 year old water heaters going strong.
Condos are a happy in-between, where the COA handles anything outside of your studs, including the roof and landscaping. My condo even has free water and the pipes and tank are maintained by the COA. Free heat too. All I need to worry about is the electrical.
There’s no guarantee that it will all turn out positive, though. That’s why they call it “risk”.
Those first few years will be the most vulnerable, as you are not paying down principal very fast. All it takes is a job loss combined with a modest short-term real estate downturn to end up underwater on their house but still needing to sell.
But if someone is able to buy in now, maintain stable employment, and keep paying that mortgage for 5 years or so, then they will likely be better off than if they had rented all that time. How many people here can say they are confident in their job security over the next 5 years, though?
