Mortgage payments are gobbling up the biggest slice of homeowners’ income since 2010, a report by online real estate tracker Zillow says.
In the Los Angeles/Orange County metropolitan region, homebuyers in Q4 2016 could expect to spend 43 percent of their monthly income on mortgage payments, according to the report.
By comparison, Zillow said, between 1985 to 2000 – or the “pre-bubble years,” mortgage payments represented 35.2 percent of income in the area.
The report said the median monthly mortgage payment increased by $204 over the past year in the L.A./O.C. region. It said $138 of that amount could be explained by higher home values, with the rest because of rising mortgage rates.
Renters in the region, meanwhile, could expect to pay 48.5 percent of their monthly income on rent in the last quarter of 2016. In the pre-bubble years, the rent amounted to 36.2 percent of their income.
Among the largest U.S. metropolitan areas, researchers found, the Los Angeles/Orange County area requires the highest share of income from both buyers and renters making monthly payments.
The Federal Reserve is expected to raise rates two more times this year, the report noted, and many housing experts and economists believe rising mortgage rates will determine how the 2017 housing market plays out.
This is how the slices compare in the nation’s largest markets:
Source: Zillow
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
