A Median-Income Renter Household Needs 16 Years to Save a Down Payment — Twice the 2019 Wait
Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, sums up the shift: over the last seven years, the time needed to save a down payment and closing costs has doubled. The center's calculation for a median-income renter household is 16 years of saving to cover a down payment and closing costs on a starter home. That is twice as long as in 2019, and for a median-income Black renter household the estimate stretches to 21 years. The backdrop is plain enough: renters' incomes have not kept pace, and personal savings rates have dropped.
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The wait is only half the story; the other half is how the queue is sorted. Calhoun says cash purchases are way up, those who bought when prices were far lower have accumulated enormous equity as values climbed, and for younger buyers the overwhelming way to come up with the money, as the piece describes it, is assistance from family and friends.
Sorting by who already has family wealth explains who gets in now, not what to do about it. The report's own fix is supply — zoning and other reforms to encourage duplexes, townhomes and manufactured housing — and Congress passed a law this year aimed at that, though the onus falls on states and cities and new supply takes time.