Poll Results: Home Ownership

Home ownership is the North American dream. People will twist themselves into all kinds of knots to buy a home. When I asked the question, "When you bought your home, how much was your downpayment?" you said:

0% : 6%
1-5% : 24%
6-10%  : 17%
11-20%  : 15%
more than 20%  : 38%

Well, the zero-down mortgage has gone the way of the Dodo bird (thank goodness) but there are still a lot of people (62%) who are taking high ratio mortgages and paying mortgage insurance. That can be a substantial amount of money. Most people don't think twice because they just wrap the premium into their mortgage… and then pay interest on it for the next 25 or 30 years!

Those low downpayments have an impact on cash flow. So does buying too much house just because some lender was happy to give you enough rope to hang yourself. When I asked, "What % of your income goes toward housing:  mortgage payment/rent, property taxes, home insurance, utilities, maintenance?"

64% came in under 35%, which is the amount I recommend.
36% are spending more than that, with
7% spending more than 50% of their income to keep the roof over their heads.  That's gotta hurt your life category!

Since rates have been low for some time, the big concern is if people will be able to keep their homes if rates go up. So I asked, "By how much would mortgage rates have to go up before you felt the crunch on your cash flow?"

15% of you said, "Any upward move would hurt."
25% said, "I have no idea." Really?… hmm
15% of you could stand a move of up to 2%.
11% could cope wit a move up by 3%, and another 11% up by 4%.
The rest could handle a hike of 5%.

Mortgage payoff is the ultimate goal, and most of us strive to be mortgage free before we retire and have to learn to live on less money. When I asked, "When do you hope to pay off your mortgage?"

15.5% of you said you're mortgage free now
15% said you plan to be within five years of retirement
16.5% said just before you retire
8% said, "I'll never pay that sucker off!" Ouch!
30% of you plan to be mortgage-free in the next ten years
15% plan to be mortgage-free in the next five years.






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0% : 6%
1-5% : 24%
6-10%  : 17%
11-20%  : 15%
more than 20%  : 38%

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