A sharp increase in the years it takes to save for a new home is occurring in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas in the United States, an analysis by the Julian Bond Institute, or JBI, at the Center for Responsible Lending, or CRL, shows.
“Families saving for homeownership have a far steeper climb than just a few years ago,” Mike Calhoun, report co-author and president of CRL, a research and policy group, said. “Aspiring homeowners are living the harsh reality of the affordability crisis, especially if they can’t get money for upfront costs from the ‘bank of mom and dad.’”
Calhoun said alongside measures to expand the supply of starter homes and other housing, there is an urgent need for policymakers to expand down payment assistance programs for aspiring first-time homebuyers, especially first-generation home buyers.
The report, which updates CRL research released in 2019, looked at how long it would take a typical family saving at today’s national savings rate to accumulate enough money to cover a down payment and closing costs for a starter home. It found:
- Since 2019, the number of years needed to save for a home purchase for a family earning the median income among renters, about $58,000, doubled from 8 to 16 years.
- The typical Black family seeking homeownership now needs 21 years to save enough to cover the upfront costs, an increase of 10 years since 2019.
- A middle-income family now needs 12 years to save, double what was needed in 2019.
- The time for frontline workers – firefighters, police, teachers, paramedics, and teachers – at least doubled since 2019 and now ranges from 10 to 13 years.
- In the 10 most populous metropolitan areas, a family would need at least 11 years to save, a sharp increase since 2019. In order from most to fewest years, these metro areas are Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston.
- The growth in housing prices has outpaced household wages in rural areas at least as much as in urban areas.
“More renters have been priced out of homeownership for longer, reducing their ability to build wealth, while homeowners have benefited from high home appreciation and many locked in historically low mortgage rates,” Calhoun said. “Policy that makes homeownership more affordable is essential to transform this ‘Tale of Two Cities’ into a shared prosperity.”
