How Soaring Housing Costs Impoverish a Whole Generation and Maul the Real Economy [View all]

[marmar]

By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street.


How many years would it take first-time homebuyers, earning a median household income, to save enough money for the standard 20% down payment on a median home? Are you sitting down?

An impossibly long time in many cities, Lindsay David of LF Economics (and a contributor on WOLF STREET) found in his report on mortgage stress. He looked at 30 large US cities, using their local median incomes and median home prices. It assumed that young households could accomplish the tough feat of saving 5% of their income, year after year, through bouts of unemployment, illness, shopping sprees, family expansions, or extended vacations.

The results are stunning – if just a tad discouraging for first-time buyers.

In my beloved and crazy boom-and-bust town of San Francisco, where a median home (for example, a two-bedroom no-view apartment in a so-so neighborhood) costs $1 million, it would take – are you ready? – 37 effing years.

Given its higher median income, San Francisco is only in second place. The winner by a few months is another Bay Area city, San Jose. In San Diego, it would take 33 years. In Los Angeles, 32 years. First-time buyers might be retired before they scrape their theoretical down payment together. Theoretical, because in reality, too many things change, and they’re chasing after a moving target. ............................(more)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/wolf-richter-how-soaring-housing-costs-impoverish-a-whole-generation-and-maul-the-real-economy.html