College Guide
Blog
February 23, 2012 5:14 PM
Student Debt or a Mortgage?
The home ownership rate of people under 35 is at an all time low. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle:
Number of the day: 27%
That’s the portion of U.S. home buyers last year who were 25 to 34 years old, the lowest level in a decade, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Wonder why that happening?
Well, that’s because two-thirds of all college graduates have student loan debt. So they can’t buy houses.
As the article explains “they’re on the hook for big student loans and can’t qualify for a mortgage. Banks have instituted tighter mortgage lending standards in the wake of the financial crisis.”
As recently as 2009, 34 percent of all housing buyers were in that age group.