4mo ago

Study: Hopeful homebuyers need income of nearly $117,000 to afford typical home in U.S.

www.bankrate.com

Study: Six-Figure Income Needed To Afford Home In More Than Half Of U.S. | Bankrate

19 comments

"Afford" = go into debt for 30 years.
- And who doesn't feel at ease predicting stable employment for several decades for themselves? After all in a world of "at will" employment and executives that need to hit their numbers for that quarterly stock grant, barely any unions, deliberately anemic unemployment insurance benefits, who wouldn't jump at the chance?
- The house will appreciate more than the mortgage interest. It's debt, but not bad debt.
  
  That only matters if you ever plan on selling your home. Not everyone buys houses as a financial investment.
right. yeah. we know. and how many Americans have a 6-digit salary? It's not "more than half".
- also the average is going to lean cheap rural. cities are all going to be above this and major cities majorly more.
  
  It would be nice to be able to review their methodology. Averages are often pointless metrics. They don't even hint at how they arrived at 'typical.'
  Edit: My bad. They define typical as $418,489.
looks at pay statement
looks at $117,000 needed to "afford" a house
looks back at pay statement and realizes the income works out to very close to 10 times LESS
😐
I knew I was poor, but damn dude.
- 10X!!! thats like $5/hr full time. Thats illegal everywhere I know of.
  
  Gross income (before taxes) for US federal minimum wage is $15,080 for full-time. So, close to 10x less.
  
  There's also take home pay after taxes and expenses vs gross/net.
VHCOL area (San Francisco) --- "middle class" usually means household income of 300k or so.
Try it here, you have to make over $200k a year.
Edit: and be confident you'll continue to make that much money
- ...for 30 years
And if you want to live anywhere close to a decent city… good fuckin’ luck lol

19 comments