Living in Miami? Then you’re probably spending too much on your home

If you live in the Miami area the chances are good that you’re spending much of your income on one thing: your home.

Associated Press writers Adrian Sainz and Alan Zibel recently wrote a story highlighting the areas of the country where residents spend the largest chunk of their yearly incomes on their monthly mortgage payments. The writers relied on Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and its analysis of U.S. Census data.

Homeowners in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach area spent a whopping 58 percent of their income on mortgage payments. That’s an amazing figure. Ideally, a home should not suck up more than 30 percent of its owner’s income. I can’t imagine spending more than half of my income on mortgage payments.

Homeowners in Stockton, Calif., fared little better, paying 57 percent of their income on housing. In Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., homeowners threw away 55 percent of their income on housing. That percentage was identical in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers region of Florida. The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana region of California rounded out the top five. Homeowners here spent 54 percent of their income on housing.

Looking at these figures, it’s little wonder the housing slump has hit these regions hard. Home prices in much of Florida and California shot up too high too quickly during the residential slump. They were unsustainable. No one should have to pay so much of their monthly income on mortgage payments.