14% of Americans Say Homeownership Drives Their Paycheck-to-Paycheck Strain

Owning a home has long been shorthand for financial stability. Today it’s often the opposite.

The July edition of PYMNTS Intelligence’s New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report, “The Adjustable-Rate Reckoning: How Homeownership Is Pushing Millions Paycheck to Paycheck,” finds that 14% of consumers living paycheck to paycheck cite homeownership as the reason they’re stretched thin, representing over 24 million Americans.

For many, the path to owning a home has become a trade-off between equity and liquidity. It’s a shift that’s redefining what it means to achieve the American dream.

The report reveals how rising prices, adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) and stagnant wages are pushing even high-income households into financial fragility.

The research, based on a survey of 2,135 consumers in the United States, finds that the nation’s toughest housing market in a generation has transformed homeownership from an asset milestone into a budgeting challenge.

While home prices have more than doubled since the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, reaching an average of $416,900 this year, household incomes have barely budged. Bankrate estimates a buyer now needs a household income of $116,986 to afford the median property, up nearly 50% in five years. Many buyers are bridging that gap by cutting discretionary spending, tapping pay-later credit, and accepting volatile interest rates that keep monthly costs unpredictable.

Among the findings:

• Homeownership’s hidden cost: More than 24 million consumers (14% of those living paycheck to paycheck) say buying a home directly caused their financial strain.
• Budgeting by credit: One in five homeowners with a mortgage has used buy now, pay later (BNPL) to manage large purchases, compared with fewer renters. Among paycheck-to-paycheck consumers, those who do so by choice are twice as likely to use BNPL as a budgeting tool.
• ARMs tighten wallets: Forty-two percent of homeowners with adjustable-rate mortgages who live paycheck to paycheck say they’ve cut nonessential spending in the past six months; 39% have postponed or canceled major purchases. Nearly 80% have increased their reliance on credit to meet monthly expenses.

Together, the numbers sketch a portrait of financial tension creeping up the income ladder. Homeownership, once a buffer against volatility, now often amplifies it.

Young and high-income Americans, the very groups once assumed to have breathing room, report the sharpest rise in paycheck-to-paycheck living since 2023.

The report suggests that the line between financial prudence and strain is increasingly blurred. Nearly a third of paycheck-to-paycheck consumers live that way by choice, spending freely or committing to mortgages that consume their savings potential.

But the consequences are similar and include less room to maneuver and a growing dependence on short-term credit to maintain lifestyle and liquidity.

As rates reset higher, adjustable-rate borrowers are responding like households under inflation pressure by trimming spending, deferring big-ticket items, and leaning on revolving or installment credit to preserve cash flow.

The pattern indicates that housing-driven financial stress is no longer confined to the subprime borrower but has migrated into the middle and upper tiers of the consumer economy.

The financial badge of homeownership has flipped. Millions of Americans are now discovering that owning a home can make budgets less predictable, not more secure, and that the biggest mortgage payment risk isn’t default but depletion.

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