More US households renting homes, across all income levels

Washington

ROB Austin and his wife, Natalia, have a 10-month-old son, healthy incomes and plenty of cash in the bank for a down payment on a house. But they are happily renting a town house in Pasadena, California, with no plans to buy for now, given the frothy prices in their area.

"As long as there is such a disconnect, where a couple like my wife and me have to put down a gargantuan down payment and still have a large monthly payment to get into a decent, and not necessarily nice, house, that is a game we don't wish to play," said Mr Austin, a 39-year-old business manager at a biotechnology company. "When home price-to-income levels come back to a more normal level, when that happens, then we will be the first to jump in. If that never happens, that is OK."