One-third of US households pay more than 30 percent of wages on housing

The term is “cost-burdened” and it means those households paying more than 30 percent on housing. That number now stands at 38 million in the United States. The problem is even worse for renters where 21 million pay more than 30 percent and 11 million pay over half of their income in rent.

The problem is that incomes have not kept pace with the growth of the economy, made even worse by the ongoing shortage in housing inventory.

There is a bit of good news, at least on the rental front. While rental prices have grown by 3.7 percent average, some markets are reporting increasing vacancies which should cause a slowdown in price gowth.