Many South Florida incomes going straight to homes

With the growth of home prices greatly outpacing the increase in salaries during the housing boom, South Florida now finds roughly one third of its homeowners with mortgages paying more than half of their incomes towards housing costs, according to U.S. census data. In Miami-Dade County, 33 percent of homeowners with mortgages fit that description, up from 29 in 2006. In Broward County, 27 percent of the 338,992 homeowners with mortgages spent at least half their gross income in 2007 on housing costs, while Palm Beach saw 26 percent of its 230,111 homeowners with mortgages do the same. The census defines housing costs to include mortgage principal, interest, taxes, insurance, association fees, utilities and home-equity loans.