Half of Americans struggling to afford housing, survey finds (2024)

FAQs

Half of Americans struggling to afford housing, survey finds? ›

A recent Redfin survey finds half of U.S. homeowners and renters struggle to afford housing payments. The survey, which included 2,995 respondents, reveals one in five individuals face difficulty when they need to pay their rent or mortgage. They may skip meals or work extra hours to make ends meet.

The nationwide median price of a new single-family home is $495,750, meaning half of all new homes sold in the U.S. cost more than this figure and half cost less. A total of 134.9 million households — roughly 77% of all U.S. households — cannot afford this median-priced new home based on a mortgage rate of 6.5%.

And 44% have taken on extra debt to maintain their lifestyle, according to a new survey from Clever Real Estate.

The latest data from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, released in January, found that a record high 22.4 million renter households — or half of renters nationwide — were spending more than 30% of their income on rent in 2022.

High borrowing costs and high home prices have contributed to a jump in rent prices. Those twin forces have made it unaffordable for a lot of Americans to afford to buy a home, forcing people to pivot to renting, which has created competition for properties, pushing up prices.

The center's analysis of 2022 census data found that 22.4 million renter households are burdened, with a record 12.1 million spending more than half their income on housing.

21.93%, or 18,381,169, of owner-occupied households in the U.S. are house poor. Of those that are house poor, 44.20% are severely housing cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 50% of their monthly incomes on housing costs.

Why are Americans in debt? According to a survey conducted in 2023, only a third of consumers in the U.S. had no debt, with the rest of them mentioning, other than mortgages, credit cards and car loans as their main sources of debt.

But with nearly two-thirds of retirement-age Americans having paid off their mortgages, it means that the average age they have gotten rid of that debt is likely in their early 60s. Stats from 538.com, for example, suggest the age is around 63.

A 2023 survey from Clever Real Estate found that 62% of homeowners sometimes struggled to make their mortgage payment on time. The national median mortgage payment hit $2,184 in February, up from $2,061 a year ago and $1,750 in February of 2022, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

How many Americans live paycheck to paycheck? ›

How Many Americans are Living Paycheck to Paycheck? Recent MarketWatch Guides survey results indicate that 66.2% of Americans feel like they're living paycheck to paycheck. Respondents struggling to make ends meet span demographics, including genders, generations and incomes.

Renters vs homeowners

There were over 102 million renters (31.7%) in the U.S. compared to 221 million homeowners (68.2%), according to the official 2021 figures. The number of renters in the country has fluctuated year-on-year for the past six years, with 33.5% of people renting in 2014.

Since then, with vaccines allowing people to work more safely and minimizing further disruption to business operations, the percentage of mortgage holders behind on payments has declined to about 7%—an improved figure, but one that still represents more than 6 million American households.

It could take until 2026 to see a 'normal' real estate market. To get affordability back to a comfortable range will take a combination of higher wages, lower interest rates and stable prices, economists say, and that combination may take until 2026 or later to coalesce.

Key Takeaways

Millennials are not buying homes as readily as the previous generation. Delaying marriage and having children is keeping many Millennials at home with their parents. Tighter lending criteria can also make homeownership unaffordable or virtually impossible for those without much credit history.

Ongoing supply-chain issues have made building small homes expensive. “It's hard to build an affordable home today because of high labor costs, high material costs, high land costs and high entitlement costs,” McCoy said.

To explore the regions with the highest percentage of mortgage-free homeowners in the U.S. and track changes in the proportion of homes without mortgages over time, ResiClub analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Between 2010 and 2022, the share of owner-occupied homes without a mortgage jumped from 32.1% to 38.5%.

In 2020, 580,000 people experienced homelessness in the United States, with over 161,548 Californias experiencing homelessness (Point in Time Count). Local, state, and federal governments must step up and implement bold, strategic and evidence-based solutions to ensure healthy, affordable homes for everyone.