Tuesday, March 30, 2010

A little more on Mortgage Debt and Aging

I did a quick comparison of average household income for 1989 and 2007 (using the census) and average mortgage debt for those that has mortgage debt (using Survey of Consumer Finances data). In both cases I looked at 45-54 year olds.

In 1989, average household income among 45-54 year olds was $39,934; average mortgage debt outstanding among those who had debt was $39,300, so the ratio was about one-to-one.

In 2007, average household income among 45-54 year olds was $83,100; average mortgage debt outstanding among those who had debt was $154,000, so the ratio was just under two-to-one.

In 1989, the share of households in the age group with a mortgage was 58.3 percent; in 2007 it was 65.5 percent.

The only good news: interest rates have dropped from about 10.5 percent to 5 percent. So in 1989, an average income household that wanted to amortize an average mortgage in 15 years would need to pay 14 percent of gross income to do so; in 1989 it would need to spend 19 percent. So putting this all together, the ratio of debt service to income for amortization by retirement has increased by (.19*.655/.14*.583)-1 = 52 percent. Not good, but not quite as bad as I thought, either.

7 comments:

hardwood said...

Hardwood Investments:- Interesting statistics!

Unknown said...

That's very informative. The mortgages rate has been steady for the past months now. I think it's a good sign for the homeowners and the economy as a whole. loan modification

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Anonymous said...

This post is pretty informative. Mortgages rate is ok nowadays. Hopefully, it will be for the next years.
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