One in 4 middle-income new homeowners — twice as many as a decade before — are buying into cost-burdened situations.

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.

  • grte
    832·
    2 months ago

    Alternative headline: “Homes buyers can comfortably afford increasingly rare.”

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
      271·
      2 months ago

      Seriously, what a fucking disgusting headline… It reads as if the people are being irresponsible and buying things larger than they should…

      Way to blame the people for an issue that isn’t their fault…

      • Pandemanium@lemm.ee
        10·
        2 months ago

        Well, the thing is, this is exactly what led to the housing crash of '08. Back then it was because the banks were pushing people into it (and then selling the bundled loans as better rated than they were, where inside investors bet on the loans failing). If this is what’s happening now, it’s certainly because the banks are enabling it again. That would be insanely stupid of the banks after what happened in '08, but somehow we’ve gotten stuck in the stupidest timeline, so…

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
          8·
          2 months ago

          That would be insanely stupid of the banks after what happened in '08,

          Would it be though? Leeman fell, but then we started with the “too big to fail” bullshit and gave a nice lesson to the bankers that we’ll be here to bail them out should their greed take them too far. Only Joe schmoe should suffer the consequences of their actions, not the ownership class naturally. :/

          • eRac@lemmings.world
            3·
            2 months ago

            Washington Mutual didn’t get bailed out. The feds forced Chase to buy their accounts, making it less dramatic than Leeman.