> > the U.S., where a third of the population has serious
>> housing affordability problems?
>
>Where does that stat come from? I've read recently that 2/3rds of US
>households are inhabited by people who own their house; so are you
>saying that _all renters_ have _serious housing affordability problems_
>...?
>
>Or do some mortgage-payers also have this problem?
Ooops, overstated it a bit. It's a third with affordability problems - and a seventh with severe problems. From the latest annual report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University <http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/markets/son2003.pdf>:
>A staggering three in ten US households have housing affordability problems.
>Fully 14.3 million are severely cost-burdened (spend more than 50
>percent of their incomes on housing) and another 17.3 million are moderately
>cost-burdened (spend 30-50 percent of their incomes on housing)
The defs are based on HUD's guideline that housing should take up no more than 30% of income.
Doug