A Caution to home buyers from CNNMoney:
Rising housing costs are putting a major squeeze on Americans.
Nearly 39 million households can’t afford their housing, according to the annual State of the Nation’s Housing Report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Experts generally advise budgeting about 30% of monthly income for rent or mortgage costs. But millions of Americans are far exceeding that guideline.
One-third of households in 2015 were ‘cost burdened,’ meaning they spend 30% or more of their incomes to cover housing costs. Of that group, nearly 19 million are paying more than 50% of their income to cover their housing needs.
When so much of your paycheck is going toward keeping a roof over your head, it forces sacrifices in other budget areas, including food, health care and transportation.
LDSAgents.com note—What this article does not say is that many people finance homes using income generated by both partners working. Not only does this put stress on a family, but if one wage earner suddenly cannot work for some reason, finances can get stretched very quickly. We advise our readers to consider the advice of LDS leaders and be watchful about taking on too much debt.
