SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - If you're saving for a home in San Diego, hopefully, you're patient.
A recent analysis by the real estate website HotPads found it could take San Diego renters 22 years to save up for a 20 percent down payment on a home, which is about $116,820. This also assumes renters can set aside 20 percent of their income every month.
Renters are spending about 55 percent of their income on rent in San Diego, according to the site, where the median rent is about $2,650. San Diego's median rent is up about five percent since 2017, Zillow reported.
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Elsewhere around the country, renters on average spend about six and a half years to save enough for a down payment, about $43,200.
"Aspiring first-time buyers have to balance their current housing needs with their dreams of homeownership before they can think about saving for the future,” Joshua Clark, an economist at HotPads, said. "Home prices are outpacing incomes in many of the country’s largest markets, which makes saving for a home more difficult."
Many of these challenges lead to lower down payments by first-time buyers. In 2017, about 29 percent of first-time buyers put down anywhere from 3 to 9 percent, according to the report.
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If San Diegans are planning on saving for an at least 3.5 percent payment, the minimum required by most FHA loans, they'll be saving for about four years.
