Characteristics and practices of financially-stressed homeowners in Prince William County, Virginia

This study was designed to examine characteristics of overextended homeowners and to determine to what extent financial difficulty, as measured by the back-end financial ratio (principal, interest, taxes, and insurance, plus consumer credit payments, divided by gross monthly income), can be explained by a combination of affective and objective attributes and precipitating life events. The Parrott and Lytton (1993) Model of Family Housing Stability was used as the theoretical basis of this investigation. Demographic characteristics; financial characteristics, including net worth and financial ratios; money management characteristics and practices; recently-experienced life events; and psychological characteristics of the sample were reported.

Data were obtained from a convenience sample of Prince William County, Virginia residents who were clients of a Cooperative Extension financial counseling program. Two sources of data were used: a 169-item survey instrument and a financial profile. Of the 519 cases where both a financial profile and a survey were completed, 245 were homeowners and comprised the sample. Demographic characteristics of the sample were found to be dissimilar to those of Virginia and U.S. citizens. Respondents had lower median incomes, and a higher percentage of ethnic minorities and households with children living at home.

Descriptive statistics were used to profile sample households. A quarter of the sample had a negative net worth and the mean amount of liquid assets covered one week’s expenses. Almost three-quarters of sample households had monthly household expenses that exceeded income. Over 80% experienced three or more life events that affected their finances. The most frequently-reported event was unemployment.

Seventeen independent variables were regressed on the dependent variable to produce a statistically significant R² of .3138 (p <.0001). Objective and affective attributes and precipitating life events were also regressed as blocks on the dependent variable. Only the objective attribute group was significant, accounting for approximately a quarter of the variance in financial difficulty. Only one individual variable, the number of household earners, was significant in explaining variance in the dependent variable. A negative coefficient indicated that, as the number of wage earners was reduced, the back-end ratio of sample households increased.