Tough real estate market makes divorce tougher
Divorce is rarely an easy process. But falling home values and sluggish real-estate sales are combining to make it particularly difficult right now.
Couples aren’t fighting over who gets to keep the house. They’re scrambling to get away from the burden of it. It’s too soon to see the trend in official statistics; the most recent marriage and divorce numbers compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics date back to 2005 – just when real-estate markets started to turn down from their boom years.
But lawyers and financial planners anecdotally say they are seeing more clients staying married – if only for the time being – simply because they cannot afford to break up.
“Truthfully, it’s a mess,” says Carol Chumney, a family-law attorney in Memphis, Tenn. “There are a lot of folks who want to get a divorce, and the house is an impediment because nobody wants it.”
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