House Payments Increase From a Year Ago

IRVINE, CA-Monthly house payments for homebuyers increased an average 21% from a year ago in 325 US counties, according to RealtyTrac. The higher payments resulted from a 10% rise in median prices and a 33% rise in average interest rates for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the firm reports.

According to Daren Blomquist, VP for RealtyTrac, “A potent combination of rapidly rising home prices and the often-overlooked but significant uptick in interest rates in the second half of 2013 caused the monthly cost of owning a home using traditional financing to jump substantially in many markets over the last year. The monthly cost of owning a home is still less than renting n the majority of markets, but the cost of financed homeownership is becoming dangerously disconnected with still-stagnant median incomes, driven not by shoddy underwriting practices this time around, but by investors and other cash byers who are not tethered to the typical affordability constraints.”