The National Housing Conference recently updated its Paycheck to Paycheck database, which illustrates the ability — or lack thereof — of working families to afford typical housing in metropolitan areas by comparing wage data and housing costs.
The report shows that, in the San Diego metropolitan area, a family must earn $231,456 annually to afford the purchase of a home with a 10% down payment. The average income per person is $65,195, so even a household with two adults earning the average salary would be woefully short of the ability to purchase a home in our region.
What does that mean a family would have to give up in order to purchase a home to provide stability and a better future? Reliable transportation? Healthy food? Medical care? The cost of home should never be that much. That’s why the work we do at Habitat is so important.
