Owning a home remains the American dream for most people. A recent study by the New York Federal Reserve found that 72.3 percent of renters either Preferred or Strongly Preferred to be homeowners.
Depending on what an individual earns can slow or expedite the path to homeownership given the potential or lack-there-of for savings for a down payment. To identify those degrees with the best potential to save for a down payment, Realltor.com analyzed incomes across college majors for entry-level graduates.
Key assumptions in the Realtor.com study included:
- Purchasing a $250,000 home with a 20 percent down payment
- Average starting salary for each degree as reported by Payscale.com
- Saving 20 percent of salary per year for the down payment
The findings are very one-sided, with all but one of the top 10 degrees in engineering. The top 10 are listed in the following table with the ranking based on the fewest number of years required to reach the $50,000 down payment (20 percent).
Within the top-26 degrees that would allow for a home purchase under these assumptions in four years or less, 22 are in the engineering. This emphasizes once again are the returns to students in STEM Studies: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. For current high school students, lever-up your potential earnings in the STEM classes.
To read the entire HousingWire article click http://www.housingwire.com/articles/40172-here-are-the-top-10-college-degrees-for-homeownership?eid=311692759&bid=1761079
Once again I invoke the invoke the TINSTAANREM axiom — There Is No Such Thing As A National Real Estate Market. Nor is there such a thing as a typical salary for ALL college graduates. If you want to increase the probability of being a homeowner in the future, what you study in college will likely make a difference.
Ted