Owner Cost Burden Rate
The share of owner households whose monthly ownership costs take 30 percent or more of household income, reported separately for households with and without a mortgage.
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The share of owner-occupied households whose monthly ownership costs take 30 percent or more of household income. This is the owner-side counterpart to rent burden.
The cost concept is the Census Bureau's selected monthly owner costs, which the Bureau defines as "the sum of payments for mortgages, deeds of trust, contracts to purchase, or similar debts on the property (including payments for the first mortgage, second mortgages, home equity loans, and other junior mortgages); real estate taxes; fire, hazard, and flood insurance on the property; utilities (electricity, gas, and water and sewer); and fuels (oil, coal, kerosene, wood, etc.)," together with homeowners association or condominium fees and mobile home costs where they apply (ACS Subject Definitions). Burden is then "the computed ratio of selected monthly owner costs to monthly household income," computed separately for each unit.
The 30 percent threshold is the federal standard. HUD considers households paying more than 30 percent of income for housing to be cost burdened, and those paying more than 50 percent to be severely cost burdened (HUD USER).
The Bureau tabulates owners with a mortgage and owners without a mortgage as separate distributions, and they behave differently: a paid-off household still carries taxes, insurance, utilities and fees, but no debt service. Both are published here rather than merged.
Metrics in this family#
Owner cost burden, with a mortgage
The share of mortgaged owner households at or above the 30 percent threshold, from the most recent ACS 5-year vintage.
Owner cost burden, without a mortgage
The same share among owner households that do not carry a mortgage.
Owner cost burden trend
Change in the mortgaged-owner burden rate over 3, 5, or 10 years, selectable in the tool. There is no separate published trend for the without-mortgage rate.
Because burden is itself a rate, its trend is reported as a change in percentage points rather than as a percentage change. Percentage-point changes stay comparable between places at different starting levels.
Considerations#
ACS 5-year estimates describe a five-year period, not a year, so windows shorter than five years compare periods that share years. The Bureau's guidance is "do not compare overlapping datasets" (Comparing ACS Data). The three-year window here is such a comparison: the two vintages share two of their five years. We publish it because it is the only recent-movement view the ACS supports at tract level, and read as a direction it still carries signal. It is not a before-and-after measurement, its movement is damped, and turning points show up late. Where the question is whether something genuinely changed, the five- and ten-year windows compare periods that do not overlap and answer it better.
Households reporting no income or a net loss fall in the Bureau's "not computed" category and have no burden ratio.
The Bureau documents two comparability breaks in the underlying costs. Maximum allowable amounts for several components changed in 2020, and in 2024 the condominium fee question began asking about homeowners association fees as well, capturing costs it had not captured before.
Census tract boundaries were redrawn for the 2020 census. Estimates published on earlier boundaries are carried onto current ones before use — see geography.
Coverage runs through the most recent ACS 5-year release. Publication lags the present, and 5-year estimates are the least current of the ACS products by design.
In tracts with few owner households — particularly few mortgage-free owner households — the estimate rests on a small sample and carries a wide margin of error. The Bureau publishes a margin of error with every ACS estimate.
References#
- 1ACS Subject Definitionshttps://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/subject_definitions/2024_ACSSubjectDefinitions.pdf
- 2HUD USERhttps://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-featd-article-081417.html
- 3Comparing ACS Datahttps://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/guidance/comparing-acs-data.html