Are you average U.S. householder? Probably not.

Households pay 24 percent of their total income for housing on average. The average expense: $927 a month.

Renters generally pay less in housing cost ($845 versus $1,008 for owners per month), but they usually pay a higher percentage of their household income than owners (31 percent versus 20 percent).

Twenty percent of recent movers identified convenience to their work as the most important factor in choosing a neighborhood.

So says the Census Bureau in its 2011 American Housing Survey, the latest year for results.

If you’d like more tidbits on the nation’s 115 million occupied homes, read on.  For example, questions about safety, health hazards and accessibility demonstrate that 64 percent of houses have

Unit owners can breathe a sigh of (tax) relief

New York State Capitol in Albany (Flickr photo by Jimmy Emerson)

Although there was little doubt that lawmakers would act, it is nice to know that the New York State Assembly finally passed an Omnibus Housing Bill on Monday following Senate action last week.

The legislation restores for three years the expired tax abatement that was created to equalize the tax burdens between single-family homeowners and owners of co-ops and condos.

It also extends for the same period the J-51 program, which provides a tax benefit for the renovation of existing housing.

However, the legislation eliminates benefits for the conversion of commercial space to residential use and limits the eligibility for condominium and cooperative buildings with units that have an average assessed value per unit is  greater than $30,000.  Excepted are projects that receive “substantial” government assistance.

Certain provisions of the 421a program were amended as well so as to encourage new residential development in  some high-density areas of Midtown and Downtown Manhattan.

Buyers can learn from first-timer’s ‘confessions’

Tara-Nicholle Nelson

When she was a first-time buyer, long before she became a columnist about real estate, Tara-Nicholle Nelson learned five lessons the hard way.

Her experience can be helpful to everyone who is looking for a new home, whether for the first time or not.  In a nutshell, this is what Nelson confides (if that is possible on the Internet):

Out and About: Homes for buyers on tight budget

Built in 1910, this low-rise has 20 apartments on five floors — and no elevator — but represents value for a hardy soul.

They exist, those apartments for buyers on a tight budget.

It will not surprise them that low prices inevitably mean compromise, usually serious tradeoffs for homeownership in Manhattan.

Among the issues they can more or less count on are lack of light, excess of stairs, cramped quarters, dismal condition, inconvenient location, noisy streets or neighbors, grim public spaces, minimal amenities such as doorman or live-in super, or persistent visits by creatures parading on more than two legs.

Weekly Roundup: Apartment bargains, price gains, sinking supply, mixed prognostications

Residential sales market attains highest peak in total dollars citywide since 2008 financial crisis, sales trail 2010

When it comes to the middle class, Manhattan naturally has one of its own

Winning design for micro-apartments allows for 55 250-to-370-sf modular units in Kips Bay

An UWS townhouse is listed for. . . $50 million

Closed sales in the Bronx slide to five-year low in 2012 as median inches up to $288,990

Major architecture firms expect 10-20 percent staff growth

First-floor apartment one of eight ways to get more space for less money

Zillow calculates 8.3 percent rise in home values

It is possible to avoid double taxation when refinancing in the city

If you can’t be too rich or thin, apparently you can have too much house

Average home price in the Hamptons sets record with surge of luxury sales

Sold price of Gramercy condop trimmed 67 percent from price that fashion designer had paid

Singer’s original $18 million asking price for Tribeca penthouse off key

It’s selling days

Celebrities are fun to watch, folly to follow

Can you see me now? (flickr photo by dunkr)

If celebrity endorsements didn’t matter, you wouldn’t see stars (many of them on the wane) shilling insurance, pills or perfume.

So it is hardly surprising that building developers like nothing more than to rub shoulders with notables of the silver and pixellated screens.  Real estate brokers are just the same.

It is, indeed, true that proximity to stars sells real estate, as the news media regularly remind us — for example, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times not so long ago.  But why?

Brokers breaking law could face severe penalties

When I wrote about proposed new advertising rules for real estate brokers, I was unable to find specific penalties.

Now Whitney A. Clark of the Department of State has enlightened me with a response to my search for answers, and the good news is that virtually all violations of New York Real Property Law can produce the same costly punishments.

Borrowers required to pay up to protect lenders

(Flickr photo by cbcd04)

Borrowing funds to finance a home purchase goes way beyond monthly payments.

The process is analogous to death by a thousand cuts.

First, you have to pay an application fee.  In other words, the money that the lender makes by charging loan interest just isn’t sufficient to cover the costs of assuring that you’ll make monthly payments on time.  (We know how well those procedures worked looking at the number of loan defaults in recent years.)

Then you fork over money for the lender to check your credit.

Let’s not forget

Out and About: Unavailable for half a century

It is not even an estate sale, but the Upper West Side co-op in the high 70s on West End Avenue apparently hasn’t been improved in the half century since the owners purchased the place.

Defining “vintage,” the apartment is typical of one that has aged in tandem with the owners.

The situation is understandable and not all that unusual, except for the number of years that have passed.  More often than not, it seems, owners grow comfortable in their homes and fail to notice the need for updating.

I suppose the feeling is not unlike the pleasures of an old pair of slippers, a well-worn cardigan or a hardcover book that has been losing the test of time.

The challenge for any broker is

Weekly Roundup: All signs point to strengthening market in NYC and U.S., owners of luxury homes gild lillies, lighthouse in Chesapeake Bay for sale

Number of Manhattan properties under contract soars, inventory plummets during 2012

Q4 Brooklyn prices post biggest year-over-year price gain since 2006, while Queens median climbs 14 percent

Bars, restaurants and grocery stores can hurt quality of life, resales for residents of apartment buildings

Foreclosures mushroom in Queens, grow somewhat in Staten Island and the Bronx, slide in Brooklyn and Manhattan

Astronaut resists aiming for moon in putting Los Angeles condo on the market

Former baseball star lists sprawling Beverly Hills estate for $25 million

Actors who split in 2011 finally selling their UES triplex, for $9.25 million

TV judge lists Midtown pied-à-terre for $9 million — yes, for a pied-à-terre!

Estate of acerbic intellectual sells Chelsea penthouse to seven-time Emmy winner

Filmmaker offers Greenwich Village co-op for sale but plans no move to North Dakota

At 4.2 million, home sales