What is the average U.S. rent/mortgage payment?

karlg-ga,


$684/month.


The most recent housing costs statistics available are for the year
2003, and were published about six months ago.

You can find them in this report from the US Census Bureau:



http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/H150-03.pdf
American Housing Survey for the United States: 2003
Issued September 2004


In particular, finances data are in this table:

Table 2..13. Selected Housing Costs--Occupied Units

Median monthly housing costs:

Overall median costs:  $684 per month

$718/month for homeowners

$651/month for renters

Those living in relatively new buildings (4 years old or less) have a
median cost of $1049 per month.

On the other hand, those living in what are called
"manufactured/mobile homes" have median monthly costs of $410.



I trust this is the information you were looking for.  However, before
rating this answer, please let me know if there's anything else you
need.  Just post a Request for Clarification, and I'm at your service.

pafalafa-ga



search strategy -- Google search on: [ census housing ]

Just what I was looking for, thank you very much.

I'm so jealous!  In the DC area the average house price is about
$400,000 which leaves a nice house payment of $2,400 even with 6%
interest.  I need to find work somewhere else.

Just one small interesting addendum to pafalafa-ga's authoritative and
useful answer.

It is probable that the "mean" (or "average") monthly housing cost is
at least a little higher that the Census Bureau's "median" cost (i.e.,
the middle number at the point where half of the population pays more
and half pays less).  That is because there is no theoretical limit to
extremely high monthly costs that bring up the average cost but have
no effect on the median cost.

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE IF THE AVERAGE HOME IS 291OOO IN THE US.

It's possible for several reasons... the 2 big ones:

1) not everyone has a mortgage for the full value of their home (many
people even owe $0 which brings the average way down)

2) the data that Pafalafa used is from 2003.  housing prices were
significantly lower than $291,000 2 years ago.