Boomers In Debt: Houston Leads Nation

Auto loans comprise the biggest section of boomer debt, credit cards represented the next biggest debt type, according to Lending Tree study.

This story was originally published in Builder.

LendingTree today released its study on baby boomer debt that found boomers living in Houston are burdened with the most.

LendingTree looked at anonymized credit report data of My LendingTree users born between 1946 and 1964 who live in the 100 biggest metros to determine where boomers have the biggest non-mortgage median debt obligations and the average breakdown of debt obligations by loan type.

Key findings

Auto loans comprise the biggest section of boomer debt, averaging about 39% of average debt across the 100 metros. Credit cards represented the next biggest debt type, averaging 35% across the 100 metros.
Baby boomers in Houston are the most burdened with non-mortgage debt, with a median balance of $31,626. On average, 43% of that is consumed by auto loans and another 33% is on credit cards.
Little Rock, Arkansas and San Antonio round out the top three, with median non-mortgage balances of $30,767and $29,985, respectively.
On the other end of the spectrum, boomers in Oxnard, California have median non-mortgage balances of $20,876. 41% of that in on credit cards and 38% in auto loans, on average.
Boomers in Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan carry the next lowest median balances at $21,110 and $21,181, respectively.
As with our other generational debt studies, Texas rules the top of the list for median balances. Five of the six Texasmetros we reviewed fall in the top 10 (El Paso comes in 36^th on the list).

Here are the top 10 U.S. cities where baby boomers carry the most debt: