house poor? not so much

I read this article at lunch, and it's eating at me so I'll do what I always do for therapy...I'll write out what I have to say.

The article says that Americans are becoming more house poor, and citing as it's argument, that homeowners in every state but one spent more of their income on a mortgage, taxes, insurance and utilities. Well....duh...especially that last one. Utilities have gone through the roof in the last year. I know in the lumberyard house, we're using less than we did last year and paying over twice as much (thank you again, FPL). Then when you look at the one state that's the exception, it makes even more sense...Alaska, home of cheap oil. It's not that we're house poor. We're energy poor, whether it's for the house, the car or the lawn mower. We're getting a huge wake up call, and it has very little to do with the house itself. It has more to do with the lights inside that house.

Somewhere in there it hints that people are willing to pay too much for a house, and housing prices are going up, despite a soft market. I won't argue that houses are cheaper than at the beginning of the decade. Not much is, besides maybe the 99 cent whopper jr. Veggies at the grocery store are more expensive than they were in 2000. That doesn't mean we're veggie poor. Living in a house is costing us more, sure. The biggest culprit isn't housing prices though...it's utilities.