Bloomberg reported that a recent poll showed that half of US homeowners and tenants surveyed said they had difficulty paying home payments.
According to the survey results, half of the respondents surveyed are struggling to cover rising housing costs and many have to tighten their finances so severely that more than 1 in 5 people skip meals to make ends meet.
The survey conducted by Seattle-based real estate brokerage Redfin and released on April 5 showed that 50% of US homeowners and tenants have difficulty paying for their houses.
Many respondents said they have to sacrifice a lot to deal with inflationary pressures. For example, 22% said they missed meals, 21% were forced to sell some belongings, and 37% worked overtime or took overtime.
Housing costs have become so heavy that some families are no longer able to cover other essential needs, including food and health care, and are forced to sacrifice a lot, work overtime and beg others to cover monthly expenses, said Chen Zhao, director of economic research at Redfin.
Housing prices and rental prices have increased sharply in many US cities, mortgage rates are still rising after reaching a 23-year high in October last year. Redfin said that the income of a typical household in the US is about 30,000 USD/year lower than the level needed to buy an average house.
Nearly 35% of survey participants said they take less vacation or not to spend money on rent. About 18% borrow money from friends and family or use retirement savings. For 16% of respondents, the cash crisis was so difficult that they had to delay or give up the necessary health care services.
The US inflation rate increased to a more than 40-year high in June 2022, forcing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to curb prices. Since then, inflation has slowed, but prices have risen 3.2% year-on-year in February, higher than economists predicted. The increase in prices has fading hopes that the US central bank will soon start lowering interest rates.
Many young American men had to leave their lives alone and return to live with their parents. A Harris/Bloomberg poll last September showed that 45% of 18- to 29-year-olds are living at home with their parents or other relatives, the highest level since the 1940s. Most of these people have moved home in the past two years.
