The less you make, the more housing takes.
But if you are going to be a low-income homeowner, Atlanta is the best big city to be in, according to a report from Zillow.
In general, lower earners can expect to use more of their paychecks to make the mortgage than better-paid folks – even if they are living in a cheaper house in a less-desirable neighborhood, according to Zillow.
"Housing affordability is a different story for low-income Americans than for median and high-earning people," said Svenja Gudell, chief economist for Zillow. "They are spending much more of their income on housing, even when they buy the least expensive homes."
The rule of thumb on affordability is: anything less than 30 percent of median income going to housing. For low-income earners, eight of the top 15 cities are below that line – with Atlanta second only to Detroit as most affordable.
In metro Atlanta, the bottom third for income uses an average of 17.1 percent to make mortgage payments. In Detroit that bottom tier uses just 10.3 percent of its income for mortgage payments.
By comparison, the upper third of income earners in metro Atlanta uses less than 11 percent of its income to cover mortgage payments.
At the other end of the spectrum is Los Angeles, where the bottom tier of homeowners pays an average of 76 percent. Second highest is 68 percent in San Francisco, followed by 48 percent in New York and 44 percent in Boston.
Low-income earners nationally spend an average of 22.7 percent of their income in mortgage payments.
Zillow is a Seattle-based source of real estate information, including data and listings.
