December 2, 2016 | by Katie Claflin
Categories: Affordable Housing, First Time Buyer, Homeownership, Teachers
Every year the National Housing Conference releases its Paycheck to Paycheck report, which analyzes housing affordability challenges of workers in several occupations across 210 metropolitan areas.
This year’s report, released in September 2016, focuses specifically on school workers, which include both teachers and those working in non-instructional roles.
The report emphasizes the importance of studying housing affordability for those beyond just teachers because “workers in a wide variety of occupations work alongside teachers to ensure that schools run smoothly and provide quality education experiences to children.”
Housing affordability for teachers has been a hot topic in the past couple of years, which makes this year’s Paycheck to Paycheck findings alarming, but not surprising. None of the five occupations studied—high school teachers, social workers, bus drivers, groundskeepers, or child care workers—earned salaries that were high enough to guarantee that they could afford to buy a home in any of the 210 metro areas studied. Even high school teachers, the profession earning the most among the school workers studied, could only afford to buy a home in 130 of the 210 metro areas studied.
Four Texas cities—Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio—were included in the report, but, based on median salaries for each profession, none of the school workers studied in the report can afford to buy a home in these communities.
Click here to view the full 2016 Paycheck to Paycheck database, which includes housing affordability findings for all metro areas and occupations included in the report.
TSAHC’s home buyer programs can help Texas school workers better afford to purchase a home in their community. Our Homes for Texas Heroes Home Loan Program, which is highlighted in the Paycheck to Paycheck report, provides down payment assistance grants to teachers and other community heroes. TSAHC’s definition of “teacher” includes anyone employed full-time in a Texas public school as one of the following:
Teachers who are first-time home buyers can also take advantage of a special mortgage tax credit, which enables them to receive a credit of up to $2,000/year on their income taxes.
But school workers don’t necessarily have to be employed as one of these professions to qualify for TSAHC’s programs. TSAHC’s Home Sweet Texas Home Loan program is open to all Texans regardless on their profession. School workers, such as bus drivers, groundskeepers, child care workers and social workers, can qualify for assistance under this program as long as they meet certain income requirements.
Beyond helping school workers overcome the down payment hurdle that intimidates so many buyers, our programs can give school workers more purchasing power, which can help them buy a home closer to their schools than they might otherwise be able to afford.
Want to know more? Visit www.readytobuyatexashome.com to read more about our programs and take our online eligibility quiz.
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