While it is well-known that the cost of buying a home has risen dramatically in recent years, the cost of owning and maintaining a home has also risen substantially, according to a recent study by Bankrate.
The average annual cost of upkeep for a single-family home in the U.S. is 26% higher now than in 2020, per the study. Based on a typical family home valued at $436,291, a family would need $18,118 per year to cover the average costs of property taxes, homeowners insurance, home maintenance costs, and electricity, internet, and cable bills. That is an average of $1,510 per month in addition to the mortgage payment.
In 2020, those same expenses would have cost $14,428 per year or $1,202 per month.
Today’s dollar does not stretch as far as it did in 2020, thanks to “pandemic-driven inflation,” according to Bankrate. From March 2020 to March 2024, cumulative inflation totaled 21%, per data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means that almost everything has become more expensive in the last four years.
Insurance rates, in particular, have skyrocketed due to rising home values, increasing construction costs, and the increasing number of natural disasters, per Bankrate. In 2023 alone, average homeowner insurance rates increased 11.3%, while homeowners in some states, including Texas, Arizona, and Utah, saw increases of more than 20%, CBS News reported.
“Starting around 2017, the property insurance market began to destabilize as more frequent natural catastrophes occurred,” a coalition of housing organizations wrote in a letter to Congress earlier this month, CBS News reported. “Insured losses arising from natural disasters were calculated at $121 billion and almost $125 billion in 2021 and 2022, respectively, which are both well above the 10-year average of $81 billion.”
In the last four years, the national median price for a single-family home has increased from $280,700 to $393,500, according to the National Association of Realtors, per the Bankrate study. Home prices are expected to soar even higher by year’s end when mortgage rates are anticipated to drop to about 6.3%. The average mortgage rate currently sits at 7.04%, per Fund.com, substantially higher than the all-time low of 2.65% set in January 2021.
The most expensive state in which to own a home is Hawaii, with an average annual cost of $29,015. The state with the least expensive homeownership costs is Kentucky, where the average annual cost is $11,559, according to the Bankrate study.