December 8, 1998 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Higher share of consumer expenditures going to homeowner expenses

The share of annual expenditures allocated to owned dwelling (or homeowner) expenses--mortgage interest and charges; property taxes; and maintenance, repairs, and insurance--increased from 1989 to 1995. In 1989, 10.3 percent of total expenditures went to owned dwelling expenses; by 1995, that figure had risen to 11.6 percent.

[Chart data—TXT]

Each of the three spending components in the owned dwelling category increased its share of total expenditures during the period. The total share for property taxes increased the most, up eight-tenths of a percentage point.

Mortgage interest payments and charges, the largest component of the category, increased its share by almost three-tenths of a percentage point. Maintenance, repairs, and insurance expenditures also increased its share by three-tenths of a percentage point during the period.

These data are a product of the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey. Additional information is available from "Owned Dwelling Expenditures by Region", Report 924, October 1998.