Almost 15 percent of American home owners with a mortgage spend half of their income or more on housing costs, according to 2007 data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. That is up from nearly 7.1 million in 2006.
Traditionally, the government and most lenders consider home owners spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs to be financially burdened. That definition now covers nearly 38 percent of American home owners with a mortgage – 19 million of them.
Here are the top 13 areas where the most mortgage holders spend more than 30 percent of their income on their homes. The information is an estimate based on an analysis of Census data by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
- Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, 58 percent
- Stockton, Calif.,57 percent
- Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., 55 percent
- Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., 55 percent
- Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Calif., 54 percent
- Modesto, Calif., 54 percent
- San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif., 53 percent
- San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Calif., 53 percent
- Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice, Fla., 52 percent
- Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Calif., 52 percent
- San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif., 51 percent
- Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev., 51 percent
- Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, Calif., 50 percent
Source: The Associated Press, Adrian Sainz and Alan Zibel (09/23/08)