IMO, Drunkle is right about 1/3 HH income going to rent as being too high — especially for those who make $65K or less. Stupid, stupid, stupid — and yes, I’m calling all the renters “stupid” if they are making $65K (gross HH income)
and paying $2K+ rent.[/quote]
To me, that’s the sort of simplistic generalization one would expect to find on an Internet forum.
Assessing a household’s financial smarts does not begin and end with house payment to income ratio. If household A – 30% – squanders its 5 percentage point advantage over household B (35%) on dining, commuting, DVDs, fancier car and $4 coffee, does that make it any less “stupid”? What if household B is better with CC management?
We spend more than we would like on rent – “stupidly so,” – but we are pretty good with almost everything else (no CC balances or car payments, live close to jobs, etc.) And the elementary school is considered above-average, too, and we have three small children.
To add: A neighbor is seeking $600K for his house. If we were to buy it – we could do 15% – our debt ratio would climb quite a bit. When prices fall enough to where we can comfortably pour back our $ into a house we like, we will gladly sacrifice square footage and the McMansion tract “prestige” for something that fits us.
