Maintenance costs push nearly six million additional US homeowners over affordability threshold

Preliminary findings from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies presented on October 30 show that nearly six million additional homeowners are pushed over the housing-cost affordability threshold when maintenance and replacement costs are factored in, Realtor.com reported. Conventional measures show that 22.7 million homeowners, or 26 percent, spent more than 30 percent of their incomes on housing in 2023. Including spending on routine maintenance and major replacement projects increases that figure to 28.4 million homeowners. [1]

Expenses such as replacing a roof are as essential as a monthly mortgage payment, yet standard calculations omit maintenance when determining whether an owner is housing cost-burdened, according to Realtor.com. This omission hides a much larger affordability issue across the housing market. [1]

Affordable housing is defined as housing deemed affordable to households with an income at or below the median, as rated by a recognized affordability index, Wikipedia notes. As FTMQ Real Estate reported earlier, American homeowners pay an average of 16,566 dollars each year in non-mortgage hidden costs, driven by rising insurance premiums and property maintenance expenses. [4][6]