Rent Costs How Much In Washington County?!

Hold on to your hats. The latest numbers are out in Washington County and they are, well, staggering.

The average price to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Southern Utah is about $1,200 per month. Throw in an extra bedroom and the average price jumps up to $1,500 a month.

Where in the world can a struggling young couple live here in our county?

Some other numbers:

Utah is pretty close to the average across the country for rent, so at least we're not extremely expensive
That title would go to Hawaii, which averages more than $2,000 per month for a very small apartment.
California is the second most expensive state to rent a place, with one-bedroom flats going for $1,927 a month
Cheap rents are found in West Virginia ($846) and Arkansas ($872).
In Washington County, if you need a little more room (for kids, for example), it's going to cost you. A 3-bedroom apartment is over $1,800 and a fourth bedroom puts the cost at an astounding $2,500 a month.

Debt-to-income ratio is a tool used by lenders and landlords to help them decide whether or not to give you a loan or let you rent out their property.

In Utah, nearly 22 percent of renters spend more than half their income just paying the rent.

In the lending industry, a loan officer will rarely qualify a family for a loan if their debt/income ratio is anywhere near 50 percent.

Lenders typically prefer a debt-to-income (DTI) ratio below 35–36%, but the maximum DTI ratio varies by lender.

So the math just doesn't work for a young family to buy a home.

For instance, a $400,000 home, even with a $50,000 down payment, would cost about 2,000 a month. That means the borrower would have to make more than five grand a month to get that DTI ratio even close to manageable.

So even with apartment rent prices as high as they are ($1,200-$1,800), they're still cheaper than that huge house payment -- if you could even get qualified for the loan.

I guess it's the new normal, unless you live in West Virginia.