Blog 41017Nationwide, families with small children typically spend seven years in their home.

U.S. homeowners that bought a two-bedroom home in 2009 and wanted to upgrade to a three-bedroom home in 2016 could expect to spend an additional $447 per month on their mortgage.

Move-up buyers in many large Midwest markets could expect to stretch their dollars further. In Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis buyers can expect to spend roughly $150 more on mortgage payments each month by upgrading from a two-bedroom to a three-bedroom home.

In hot, coastal markets, move-up buyers could expect to spend upwards of $500 extra each month – and in notoriously expensive Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose, more than $1,000 – on mortgage payments when moving from a two-bedroom to a three-bedroom home.

Growing families and households looking for more space this home-shopping season probably already anticipate paying more each month for that larger home. But just how much their monthly mortgage payments rise depends largely on where they’re looking to live and how much more space they want.

Nationwide, families with small children typically spend seven years in their home, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And because many move-up buyers are just those kinds of people – households looking to expand – we defined “move-up buyers” as households that have spent seven years in their home. This means that the family purchased a home in 2009 and was looking to expand and purchase another home in 2016.

The average American family moving from a typical two-bedroom U.S. home to the median three-bedroom home in the same ZIP code last year could expect to pay $447 more on their monthly mortgage payment, or about $5,364 per year. The premium on an additional bedroom also increases with the size of the house. For example, upgrading from a one-bedroom home to a two-bedroom home would equate, on average, to an additional $192 per month on the mortgage payment. Move-up buyers nationwide moving from the median three-bedroom to the typical four-bedroom home could expect an even steeper increase in monthly costs – $614 more per month.

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