Taxes, Insurance Take Record Bite of Homeowners' Finances

Those who owned their homes before prices and interest rates boomed haven't escaped scot-free. Surging home values have translated into higher and higher property taxes, and the combo with rising insurance costs is eating up more of monthly mortgage payments than ever, reports the Wall Street Journal. These "less-discussed" costs of owning a home are catching many off guard, wrote Sara Stanich at Forbes in an earlier piece. Details:

• About 32% of average mortgage payments went to taxes and insurance in September, the highest rate since data started being collected in 2014 by the Intercontinental Exchange.

• For 9% of homeowners, taxes and insurance make up more than half of the monthly mortgage payment, up from 4% in 2014. The cities of Rochester and Syracuse, both in New York; Omaha, Nebraska; New Orleans; and Miami-Fort Lauderdale have the highest share of people in this camp, ranging from 25% to 35% of homeowners.
• In Stanich's piece, she notes that the US median for property taxes hit $2,826 last year, up $539 from 2019. It gets worse for reassessed properties. Meanwhile, insurers looking at one natural disaster after another have been raising rates accordingly.
• Both stories note that the rising costs pose a risk to people on fixed incomes, particularly retirees. And that includes those who thought they were in the clear because their mortgages were paid off.

(More homeownership stories.)