A majority of both single and married people are struggling with their housing payments, whether for rent or mortgages, according to a survey released today by real estate brokerage Redfin.
The survey of some 1,800 U.S. residents aged 18-65 found that nearly 70% of single, divorced, or separated people say they struggle to afford their regular rent or mortgage payments, and more than half – about 52% – of married people say the same.
Specifically, 69% of divorced or separated people said they struggle, at least sometimes, to pay housing costs. Notably, the same percentage of people who are single and never married struggle regularly or sometimes to pay bills. But, the financial struggles worsen for those who are single and living with a partner. The survey shows 77% of those respondents said they struggle sometimes or regularly to pay housing bills.
Among those who are married, and receive tax benefits that single people don’t get, 53% of respondents said they struggle at least sometimes to make the mortgage or rent payments. But the share of those people is dwindling.
"Married couples make up a smaller and smaller share of U.S. households, so it's important to include single people living alone or with roommates when examining ways to ease the affordability crisis,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather.
Why all the difficulty with affordability? As NMP has reported, for one thing, variable costs such as taxes and insurance on homes have been increasing. The Federal Reserve previously noted, people are “struggling with high costs” that have resulted from high inflation in prior years.
“Americans are generally struggling to afford housing payments because costs have soared over the last five years, and wages have grown at a slower rate than housing costs,” according to researchers of the Redfin report. “Sky-high home prices and mortgage rates have pushed monthly mortgage payments near record highs. Rents are about 20% higher than they were before the pandemic.”
If a majority of people of all marital statuses are struggling with housing costs, just what are they doing to make ends meet? Some 27% of divorced or separated people, 21% of single people, and 14% of married people reported skipping meals completely to help pay for housing. Some noted they’d borrowed money from family or friends and/or worked side hustles in order to make housing payments.
Although there’s widespread difficulty, it’s notable that most are still on time with mortgage and rent payments, according to Redfin. Only about one out of 20 homeowners (married: 4%, never married: 5%, divorced: 6%), were late on their monthly mortgage payments as of September 2024. More renters were late, though: 12% of those who have never been married, 14% percent of those who are married, and 15% of those who are divorced were late on their rent.
