Housing Costs & Higher Rents Taking Bites out of Income

Higher home values, combined with increasing mortgage rates, are making home ownership much more difficult for homebuyers, according to Zillow’s Q2 2018 Affordability Report. Nationally, a monthly mortgage payment requires 17.5% of median income. Meanwhile, if renting is the option, the renter ends up paying 28.4% of his or her median income for a decent apartment.

The problem is more difficult for lower-income buyers and renters; while low-income buyers need close to a quarter of their income for a mortgage, lower-income renters can end up spending a whopping 62.7% of their median income on rent.

Things aren’t that much better in the four Texas metros, especially when it comes to lower-income families and housing. The chart below shows share of median income spent on housing costs, as well as the metrics for lower-income families. The figures from Q2 2017 are the most recent available.

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