If you or a loved one are looking to buy a house for the first time, you might think now is a bad time for that down payment. You’re not alone — more than half of aspiring homebuyers say they can’t afford it right now, according to a new survey from Bankrate.
For those pessimistic potential buyers, it feels like “too daunting a task to go about buying a home at this point,” Bankrate Chief Economic Analyst Mark Hamrick told WTOP.
The top reasons given for why these aspiring homeowners aren’t able to buy a home — cited by 54% of respondents in the survey — is that their current incomes are too low and have not kept up with home prices.
About 51% claimed the cost of living after years of inflation was too big an obstacle to even afford a down payment.
“The average price of a home that was sold last month was up 5.1% year-over-year. So we have this sort of double-edged sword of rising home prices as well as mortgage rates,” Hamrick said.
Millennials, aged 28 to 43, should be primed to own homes, but Hamrick said they are busy with other expenses. A quarter of those surveyed said they had too much credit card debt and 14% cited student loan debt as a barrier for a down payment.
Nearly a third of people surveyed said it will take at least five years or longer to save enough money for a down payment and 10% said it would take a decade or more.
Hamrick said first-time buyers also need to be aware of the costs of owning a home.
“We know that the majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, only 44% of Americans say they could pay an emergency expense of $1,000,” Hamrick said.
Part of the overall cost of homeownership is paying for maintenance, upkeep and renovations.
Hamrick said if homeownership is a goal, aggressively save and live within your means.
He also suggests getting preapproved for a mortgage.
“There’s nothing that a would-be seller likes to see more than someone who is a well-qualified home purchaser.”
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