Dive Brief:
-
The average college senior graduates with almost $30,000 worth of debt, and that is keeping members of that age group out of the homebuying market.
-
In the second annual America at Home Survey by Washington, D.C.-based NeighborWorks America, debt-saddled recent grads said their biggest obstacle to homeownership is their student loans. College debt, in fact, is a bigger hurdle than saving for a down payment, their ability to afford mortgage payments, job security, or bad credit.
-
But survey participants who do not have student debt named down payments and job security as their barriers to homeownership, and ranked student debt last.
Dive Insight:
The longer these young adults expect to be paying off student debt, the longer they will put off their first home purchases, NeighborWorks acting CEO Chuck Wehrwein said. “If we don’t mitigate the effect that the student loan burden is having and will have for years to come on homeownership, the country will lose a significant amount of economic activity,” he said.