Many Renters Could Afford Mortgages, But Can't Afford Homes

By one measure, renters in most of the nation's metro areas could afford to own a home. Not just the mortgage, but the suite of financial responsibilities involved with homeownership, from property taxes to home insurance. There's a host of reasons why more young renters aren't first-time home-buyers right now, but the ones that are cited the most—stay-at-home Millennials, crushing student debt loads—may not be the best explanations.

A new interactive map from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies reveals that in many metro areas across the U.S., more than 50 percent of renters could afford to own a home. To create the map, researchers used data from a variety of sources to calculate both the homeownership costs and renter incomes in 85 of the nation's 100 largest metro areas.