City Poll: % Of Income Spent on Housing/Rent per Month

[chris08876]

City Poll: % Of Income Spent on Housing/Rent

Was just curious what SSP'ians are spending on either rent or housing or property costs on a monthly basis based on the % of income.

Was aiming to find out what the lower and upper limits are, along with the average, where one can live comfortably, and if that could apply to folks spending 50% or even 30% of a month's pay or income on housing/rent.

I'd be curious to also hear what some Canadian members or even folks outside of North America are paying. Especially curious for folks paying over 45-50%...

[Steely Dan]

since my wife quit her old job in january, and me getting covid laid-off in march, our housing costs are now ∞% of our current income of zero.

but before this horrible fucking year, we spent around 25% of our take-home on housing (mortgage + taxes + condo assessment).

When we bought our home 2.5 years ago, we got pre-approved for a mortgage ~40% higher than the one we ended up taking. I sure am glad we played it conservatively, given our new circumstances.

[Kngkyle]

I just bought a new place and I'm spending just under 50% of my net income on mortgage + HOA + taxes + insurance. Fortunately, I make enough to where the remaining 50% is more than enough to live on and still be able to travel regularly and pursue other investments (in addition to 401k).

I'd much rather spend 50% of my income on a mortgage that builds equity than 40% of my income on rent that builds nothing.

The % itself doesn't tell the whole story.

[LouisianaRush]

Less than 15%. We spend a higher percent on traveling than we do on the mortgage, insurance, and taxes. Living in a high income/lower cost of living state (by east coast standards) really helps.

[MonkeyRonin]

I spend 32% of my after-tax income on rent/utilities. But that's with a well below average rent and above average income.

[the urban politician]

The industry standard is to report the cost of housing as a proportion of your gross income.

For rent, usually it is determined that you are housing burdened if you are spending more than 30%, or 1/3 of your gross income on rent.

In my case I typically approve tenants whose monthly gross income is 3 times my asking rent.

[hauntedheadnc]

From a study done last year on this very topic:

In the Asheville metropolitan area, which encompasses Buncombe, Henderson and Haywood counties, HUD calculations puts the AMI at $66,400 for a family of four.

The average annual salary for an individual in Asheville is $39,818, or $19.14 an hour, said Paul D’Angelo, community development program director with the city of Asheville, at a development forum in November. That salary would translate to $995 a month to spend on housing.

But the average rent in Asheville is $1,148 a month, or $317 more than the average household can afford per month.

The recent Bowen Report found 46.1% of Asheville renters are "cost-burdened," meaning they pay over 30% of their income toward housing, and 19.4% are "severely cost-burdened, paying over 50% of income toward housing.

[niwell]

Our rent is absurdly below market rate and there are 2 of us living here, so I'm currently only spending about 10% of my takehome on rent... Of course we are starting to feel like we're on top of each (1 bedroom apt on the main floor of a house) which has just been exacerbated with both of us working from home during COVID. Moving at the end of June to a much larger place nearby which is still well below market rent and will be paying around 20% of takehome.

When I lived alone it was about 20%-25%, though I haven't really lived anywhere in Toronto that's been at market rent since I moved. It pays to get places through contacts! I can't even begin to think what the mortgage payments would be on a similar sized place to what we are moving into...

[sentinel]

I'm around 30% or so, but that includes my real-estate taxes, which is about 30% of that 30%. I live in an older inner ring suburb with very easy access to downtown and a very lively and active downtown of its own, but those small businesses alone are not enough to offset my taxes. If that was the case, I'd be paying a lot less.

[llamaorama]

29%

[Londonee]

Are talking Gross or Net income?

[Innsertnamehere]

Gross is the general rule.

I was at 17% of gross in Toronto renting a 1 bed apartment, which by the time we moved it was about 20% below market rents. We recently moved to Hamilton though, and bought a house. Including property tax and insurance, it’s about 27% of gross. We don’t have any other debt though so it’s still very manageable. We were approved for a mortgage larger than bought, and I’m thankful we didn’t go to our max considering I’ve been put down to 4 days a week because of COVID. We are losing a good chunk of cash because of it (obviously a lot less than others though, and for that I’m very thankful).


As a percentage of take home it’s about 38%, but my wife is unionized with pension contributions so her actual paycheque is lower than it “should” be, which is fine since we have reduced retirement savings requirements because of her pension contributions.

We are lucky that both me and my wife work very good jobs though. I don’t think we are anywhere close to typical. I wouldn’t be comfortable going for more than 30% myself. No idea how people manage 40%+ housing costs, especially on lower incomes. It’s been an adjustment to not having huge amounts of excess cash each month when our housing costs were so low.

[LAsam]

Originally Posted by Londonee

Are talking Gross or Net income?

I think most people are going based off of net, or take home pay. The 1/3 rule is really meant to be applied to gross, though.

[mousquet]

I can't find any accurate figures for the Paris region in particular, so I can't answer the poll, but housing is clearly the main expense of your typical middle-class household over here.

My guess is around 25 to 30% on average. Quite possibly much more for the lower middle class or working class, whatever you'd call people with lower wages.

Obviously, it all depends on one's annual revenues and standards/requirements. For instance, if you want a mansion in Central Paris, you'd better be really wealthy.

That's about it.

[Agent Orange]

This comparison is pointless without stating up front whether gross or net, and if net then do you account for 401k, HSA, FSA and other withholdings as those differ for everyone?

I split an older, below market rate 2 bedroom apartment a few blocks from downtown with a roommate and spend 9% of my gross income, or 14% of my net income (fed/state/SS taxes plus 401k and HSA).

[JManc]

mortgage/ taxes/ insurance/ maintenance/ utilities/ internet/ etc ~25% (net pay) and that's everything house related.

[sopas ej]

For me, cost of housing is:

Gross income = 19%
Net income = 25%

This doesn't include utilities; I wouldn't think to include it because it varies every season and year (gas and electric, depending on A/C and heater use); sometimes we even get full-on credits for whatever reason the electric company says and end up not even paying for electricity for one or two months. And at our apartment complex, we don't pay for water.

[TimCity2000]

20% of take home income

[dave8721]

Miami is generally the most rent burdended city in the US but i never paid a very high % of my income to rent.
I own now and pay a pretty low %. Maybe 15% or 16% of gross income. Thats mortgage plus insurance/taxes. Obviously various maintenance and yard, pool...etc would be on top of that.

[Pedestrian]

https://calbudgetcenter.org/resource...fford-housing/

This is for all of CA. The Bay Area is probably the worst part of the state.

In San Francisco, the median gross rent in 2018 was $1805/month. Basic utilities(electric, gas, water--not internet etc) tend to be low cost because of the moderate weather so add $100/month for a total of $22860/yr. The average household income in SF was $104,552 so housing costs averaged about 22% for renters who are 60% of the city. But SF has rent control on units built before the 1970s so there's a huge disparity depending on whether you have lived in a controlled unit a long time or not (because when a unit becomes empty, the rent can go to "market" levels) or don't live in a controlled unit at all.