A Bankrate study shows owning a home costs over $21,000 a year in hidden expenses.
Please consider the Bankrate study, Owning a home costs over $21,000 a year in hidden expenses
It all begins with the cost of acquiring a place. As of April 2025, the median home price stood at a near-record $437,942, according to real estate platform Redfin, up 44 percent from 2020.
Unfortunately, American incomes aren’t keeping pace with residential real estate costs. A recent analysis by home improvement site Fixr found that, over the last quarter-century, housing prices have increased 197 percent, while the median household income has only increased by 40 percent.
But buying is just the beginning: The squeeze on wallets intensifies after one becomes a homeowner. Higher home values mean bigger property taxes and homeowners insurance policies (and premiums). And in the last five years, inflation has also been rearing its ugly head in the rising cost of everything, including construction/home improvement materials, goods and services – and labor.
That’s why consumers are particularly feeling the pain in the form of home maintenance costs – the highest of our hidden expenses at $8,808 a year. That’s almost two times the cost of utilities/energy ($4,494), double the cost of property taxes ($4,316), four times the cost of home insurance ($2,267) and six times the cost of internet/cable ($1,515).
By far, the single most expensive homeownership cost is maintenance: routine upkeep and minor fixes to a property. The impact of general inflation on the expenses has been significant, as we noted earlier. Beyond Bankrate’s calculations, there are reasons why these costs are rising, and are likely to continue to increase too – namely, the nation’s aging housing stock. The median age of an American home is over 40 years old. Small wonder that in 2023, the average maintenance spending per homeowner for houses built before 1980 climbed 76 percent, notes the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.
According to real estate data analyst Cotality, property taxes for single-family residences have risen an average 27 percent from 2019 to 2024. And once they go up, they often lag in going down, even if housing prices soften.
Rivaling the rise in property taxes is that of residential utilities: electric and gas bills, increasing to the tune of nearly 30 percent since 2021 and almost 40 percent since 2019, respectively, according to the U.S. Energy Administration. Largely due to rising transmission and distribution costs, those increases are outpacing the general inflation rate.
Also outpacing inflation: the notorious rise in homeowners insurance premiums, which have grown by 24 percent nationwide from 2021 to 2024. Again, some of the increase reflects rising home prices – the more valuable a property, the more it costs to insure it – but the growing frequency of extreme weather events and natural disasters has played a major part as well.
Key Points
- The average annual cost of owning and maintaining a single-family home in the U.S is more than $21,000 a year, according to a new Bankrate study.
- Hawaii and California top the list of states with the highest homeownership costs (over $30,000 annually); West Virginia and Mississippi are the lowest, at less than $15,000 a year.
- East and West Coast homeowners tend to pay more in hidden costs than those in the South and Midwest.
- Home maintenance alone averages more than $8,800 a year, accounting for the largest chunk of hidden homeownership costs.
Homeowners Insurance
From Google AI: Homeowners insurance has increased significantly since 2020, with some estimates showing a nearly 70% increase nationally over the past five years (2020-2025) and a 24% increase over the past three years (2022-2025).
Property Taxes
From Google AI: Property prices have increased by approximately 47% to 55% since the beginning of 2020, with the most recent data showing a 54.9% increase nationally between Q1 2020 and Q1 2025. Individual market increases vary, with some areas seeing greater appreciation and others showing more moderate gains.
Utilities
From Google AI: Since 2020, utility prices have increased significantly, with some sources citing a 41% jump in total household utility costs and a 40% increase in electricity prices according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics
Sales Price
In February 2020, the national median sale price for all home types was $293,700,from Redfin’s report from March 2020.
In April of 2025 it was $437,942.
Maintenance
Bankrate estimated home maintenance costs at 2 percent of the median sale price for single-family homes in each state. Bankrate accessed Redfin’s national and statewide February median sale price data for single-family homes on April 8, 2025.
Changes Since 2020
- Property Taxes: +47%
- Homeowners’ Insurance: 48.0% Zillow, 70.0% others
- Utilities: 41% BLS
BLS Excusions
| Excluded Cost | Why BLS Ignores It | Real Impact | CPI Treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property Taxes | Considered a capital expense | Up 54.9% Crushes budgets in many states | Ignored |
| Homeowners Insurance | BLS only counts insurance of contents | Up 48-70% since 2020. Doubled in Florida, Texas Oklahoma | ~0.4%CPI weight. Absurd vs reality |
| Maintenance Repairs | Major items are considered a capital expense | The #1 source of homeowner regret | Only small items counted |
Those three items alone average $15,391 per year in April of 2025 . Yet together they have less than 1.2% direct weight in the CPI basket.
That’s why the official inflation number feels so disconnected from what homeowners actually pay.
American Dream or Nightmare?
Homeownership is sold as the ultimate American Dream—stability, equity, a place to call your own. But once the keys are in hand, the hidden costs pile up fast, often blindsiding new owners and fueling regret.
According to Bankrate’s 2025 Hidden Costs of Homeownership Study, these non-mortgage expenses for a typical single-family home average $21,400 annually, outpacing wage growth and general inflation.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Consumer Price Index (CPI), the go-to inflation gauge, largely ignores these costs. CPI’s shelter component (35% of the index) relies on Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER), a hypothetical “what if you rented your own home?” metric that excludes property taxes, full homeowners insurance, and most maintenance as “capital” (investment-like) expenses.
Only utilities (6–7% of CPI) and a sliver of insurance (0.4%) get direct play.
CPI Result
The CPI understates homeowner inflation by ignoring major costs.
BLS explicitly states: “Most maintenance… [is] part of the cost of the capital good and… not treated as consumption items.”
Routine services (e.g., hiring a plumber for a minor leak) get partial capture elsewhere in CPI, while major repairs/improvements (e.g., HVAC replacement) are fully ignored.
Regrets
Bankrate’s 2025 Homeowner Regrets Survey found 45% of owners have at least one regret, with 42% citing these hidden costs as “more expensive than expected”—the #1 gripe.
| Regret Category | Percentage (Among Those with Regrets) | Percent of All Homeowners | Key Quote/Notes from Bankrate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maintenance & Hidden Costs Too Expensive | 42% | ~19% | #1 regret “Unforeseen upkeep and ongoing financial burden” |
| Home Too Small | 21% | ~9% | Common for growing families; millennials cite this most (25%). |
| Mortgage Too High / Wrong Rate | 19% | ~9% | Affordability trap—28% of buyers in Bankrate’s separate poll. |
| Home Too Big | 11% | ~5% | Empty-nesters’ gripe; boomers at 15%. |
| Neighborhood Not Ideal | 10% | ~5% | Schools/commute surprises; urban owners higher. |
| Wouldn’t Buy Again (Overall) | 17% (of all owners) | 17% | 70% would rebuy. Shows mixed feelings, with costs as the sour note. |
Poor Measures of Inflation
Realistically, the CPI is a very poor measure of inflation.
Alternate measures like Truflation are also a joke because they are based on more timely measures of the same garbage.
Truflation measures of rent are more timely than BLS data, but their alleged “market-based” numbers are ridiculous because few move annually and Truflation only captures new leases.
Economists do not factor in home prices or the true annual expenses at all. This is on the basis that homes are a capital expense.
The Big Economic Lie
The CPI misses 80–90% of the $8,808 median annual maintenance hit.
For median homeowners (~$97K income), that’s ~9% of after-tax pay untracked in “shelter” inflation, fueling the 42% regret rate on upkeep surprises.
And the BLS ignored property taxes and homeowner’s insurance too.
Reports that “real wages are up” are a total fabrication of reality.
Most economists don’t get this because they are trained to be stupid. They make it seem like real annual expenses don’t matter because they are a “capital expense”.
It’s as if only consumer inflation matters, which is of course idiotic. And the Fed acts on the same idiotic belief.
What’s Needed
We need a True Inflation Index (TII) that measures all paid prices, not hypothetical nonsense.
The Truflation index purports to be this measure, but fails miserably. It’s more timely, but it’s more timely BS with the same BLS flaws and some new flaws on rent measurement.
The irony in most alternate measures is they go further in understating the CPI because homeowners pay a mortgage and not rent.
OER is a joke, not because it’s an inaccurate measure of what a house would rent for, but because it ignores the true costs of home ownership.
And it’s not just shelter. The CPI measure of food is also nonsense.
BLS Food Weights vs Reality
| Category | BLS Weight (%) | USDA Weight (%) | Gap (Points) | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Food at Home | 8.043 | 5.68 | +2.36 | Overweights groceries |
| Food Away from Home | 5.64 | 8.01 | -2.37 | Underweights pricier eats and ignores tips and taxes. |
| Total Food | 13.691 | 13.691 | 0 | Result: CPI food up 2.2% YoY Sep ’25; real blended ~3.1% per USDA trends. |
Note: I set the USDA total weight at 13.69%, then revised food at home and food away from home based on USDA numbers.
For discussion of the above table, please see Where Do You Spend Money on Food? How Screwed Up Are the BLS Weights?
Does the BLS match your budget?
Inflation Matters
Politicians and most economists live in ivory towers. They do not understand why consumers feel miserable.
But consumers feel miserable because real word expenses are far outpacing income gains.
Inflation matters and it shows up in affordability complaints and political polls.
Mercy! Check This Out: Trump Sounds Like Biden
Trump Truth Detail Link: I have asked the DOJ to immediately begin an investigation into the Meat Packing Companies who are driving up the price of Beef through Illicit Collusion, Price Fixing, and Price Manipulation. We will always protect our American Ranchers, and they are being blamed for what is being done by Majority Foreign Owned Meat Packers, who artificially inflate prices, and jeopardize the security of our Nation’s food supply. Action must be taken immediately to protect Consumers, combat Illegal Monopolies, and ensure these Corporations are not criminally profiting at the expense of the American People. I am asking the DOJ to act expeditiously. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
On November 8, I commented Hoot of the Day: Trump Sounds Like Biden and Kamala Harris on Price Gouging
Republicans should be seriously embarrassed.
Facing anger from farmers, Trump amusingly and quickly resorted the Democrat standard playbook: Blame Price Gouging.
Also amusing, and very contradictory, like Biden, Trump insists there is no price inflation to begin with.
Trump says there is “virtually no inflation”. He even declared victory.
Related Posts
November 23, 2025: Can Trump or Anyone Possibly Fix the US Affordability Crisis?
No one will fix the problem for two reasons.
- Politician don’t understand inflation.
- No politician would have the political will, even if they did understand.
Trump’s tariffs make matters worse and so will Mamdani’s rent controls. Both pander to extreme ends of populist nonsense.
If you want to fix inflation, you first have to understand it and measure it properly.
Then you have to get elected and get Congress to go along.
August 11, 2025: Over Half the US Has Major Stress Over the Price of Food
Are you stressed out over food?
Is Homeowners Insurance Understated in the CPI? Shop Around!
On August 11, asked Is Homeowners Insurance Understated in the CPI? Shop Around!
Our Insurance went up by $2,000. Then another $2,000. Here’s our story.
But hey, that’s not inflation. It’s Tinkerbelle, the tooth fairy, or a Pinocchio of a different color to the BLS, the Fed, and nearly every economist.
Conclusion
The existing inflation measures are nonsense.
The CPI, PCE, Truflation, and other measures all exclude homeowners’ insurance, property taxes, and maintenance other than minor items.
None of them weigh food expenses properly. None of them include tips.
The PCE, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, includes expenses paid on behalf of consumers, notably health insurance. That’s a good idea, but pity the person not on a corporate plan and not on Medicare.
Is is it any wonder Trump is now considering extending Obamacare.
For discussion, please see Trump Says It ‘May Be Necessary’ to Extend Obamacare Subsidies
Trump rejected a one-year deal. Any guesses for how long now?
I have news for Trump. The CPI will understate medical care costs but look for upward pressure on the PCE in 2026.
Above, I asked for a True Inflation Index (TII). That may start debates on what Inflation is. Instead, I think we should call the measure True Price Inflation Measure (TPIM) encompassing all of the points mentioned in this post.
Meanwhile, don’t make a fool of yourself by saying wages are rising faster expenses, because they aren’t.
As of next year, healthcare’s annual unsubsidized premium payment will be about the same as annual rent payment figures for many US households.
The solution is to develop chronic hypochondria, and live in emergency rooms. The vending machines provide a variety of nutritional options.
Interesting anecdata. I’m self employed and look at health insurance and health sharing ministries frequently to compare costs. Last week, the least expensive PPO plan on eHealth was a silver plan that cost $2900/month with a $7500 deductible per member and $15k max out of pocket.
That is catastrophic insurance but selling for Mercedes healthcare insurance prices.
Not sustainable.
“There’s virtually no inflation” if you exclude food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, transportation and entertainment. (Did I leave anything out?)
Electricity? Or is that under shelter?
This reminds me of going to fast casual restaurants. I bought Dave’s Hot Chicken yesterday and when i went to pay, the screen let me choose between 15, 20 or 25%. There was a really small icon that let me X out of that and skip the tip, but they set it up as though i had no choice. So tired of this crap.
I got my McDonald’s combo today for about 5 bucks… used to be 9. Apparently the consumer has spoken, and McDonald’s has listened. Score a win for the free market! It is truly the Golden Age!
Let’s all just ignore appreciation.
This is a good & informative post, Mish. Thanks. My property tax went up 25% this year. It is up easily more than that 54% national average 2020-2025.
All the mistakes in the CPI are in one direction: Understating actual inflation. What a co-incidence.
Everything is expensive and getting more expensive.
Unfortunately, wages are not keeping up and many are falling behind further and further. This partially explains why the homeless population and those totally dependent on handouts is rising so fast.
Corporations reward their management and shareholders instead of their employees.
Greed and income disparity has consequences…
>>>
I find the housing ownership idea that’s been sold to the public total nonsense because you will never own anything if you don’t believe me just don’t pay the taxes on said idea of home ownership…..
Government is not about us It’s about servicing the needs of the private sector corporation and political donors. The 2 party system, which has rigged the system for perpetuity, is ossified garbage.
So if anyone thinks the 2 parties or Trump really cares they are silly
Most maintenance can be done DIY. The big tickets items can’t (new roof, cabinets, AC). My maintenance costs, amortizing the big tickets probably runs around $3k annually. I live in Florida. My property taxes run around $1400/year and insurance runs around $1700 (i maintain a high deductible, catastrophic only policy). I also hate energy bills so I have a 19 SEER AC and low energy use appliances. So my monthly bill runs up to $110 in August and down to $55 in March. Point is, those costs are highly variable depending on homeowner. Before buying, know thyself.
I also live in Florida (West Palm area) and my taxes are VASTLY higher (more than 10x yours) and so is insurance (more than 5x yours).
It’s not about knowing thyself, it’s about knowing the current market. My guess is you’ve lived in your home forever and are grandfathered into low property tax rates and don’t have a mortgage so you don’t have hurricane coverage. That’s not an ‘average’ situation and its can’t be replicated (grandfathered taxes).
This feels like you didn’t think this through.
All the expenses listed would also e experienced in rental properties. The only difference being the expenses are rolled up into rent. After all, someone still has to pay.
By your estimates this accounts for ~$1,900 of your rent. The remainder being loans and profit.
What did I miss?
Someone will be by shortly to explain it all for you. Thanks for your patience.
You missed nothing.
Of course all those things are rolled into the rent. That’s why rent is so high these days.
And realistically, while you point out a large maintenance $, only the YoY change should be counted in CPI and then you can argue how that’s measured. This write-up implies massive $’s being missed, when in essence, some of it is already counted in OER and other places.
Depends on what and where you’re renting. All the costs on a 2 bedroom 800 sq ft apartment in a multi-family housing unit will be dramatically lower just due to scale. If you are renting a single family home, it may well be that the house was an inheritance and the owner can still make a huge profit, especially when the renter covers utilities. But for the guy carrying a mortgage on a house and trying to rent it out for whatever reason; he’s got a struggle ahead of him.
I don’t know the exact magic, but somehow it’s a lot cheaper to rent than to own in places that people actually want to live.
Devalued currency expressed as inflation, and usary are the two highest costs.
Utilities and energy along with Internet and cable would be paid directly by renters also. The other three costs would be paid indirectly by renters since rent should also cover Maintenance, Property Taxes, and Insurance. However since these are paid directly by the homeowner it is quite likely that new home buyers leave these expenses out while budgeting for a new home purchase. Of course the CPI calculations make little sense along with the omission of healthcare costs for those that pay their own insurance.
One of the reasons for the high cost of maintenance is the lack of skilled labor. Immigration enforcement has caused a big drop in roofers, carpenters, and laborers in general, at least in my part of the country.
The easy way to see if companies are raising prices without a corresponding increase in costs is to look at their gross and operating profit margins. Supermarkets have very low margins. The best way to keep costs down is to ensure competition. This works in almost every industry including supermarkets, healthcare (hospitals in urban areas where there are more than one hospital), meat packers, and insurance. There has been very poor anti-trust enforcement, especially in the meat packing industry.
Americans hate competitive capitalism.
AmericansGovernment hates competitive capitalism.but love crony capitalism
Homeowners insurance is vastly too low. I live in North Carolina and we have high insurance rates along the coast. That does not even cover flood insurance if required. Real estate taxes have climbed. You have not priced a new roof or a new HVAC.
Americans Are Getting Priced Out of Homeownership at Record RatesMore Americans are getting priced out of homeownership. The long-term implications could reshape society.
https://archive.ph/QqQaf#selection-1157.0-1163.105
As the population rises, competition for land, jobs and food naturally rises. Premiere locations? At a dramatically higher rate.
Everybody wants the nicest cave, then the nicest tent, then the nicest hut, & lodge on up to the penthouse and nicest castle.
Today in America, everyone wants a fantastic home right out of college and quite frankly, if they bought “Starter Houses” they would be far better off as they could build security and equity faster with less risk or ancillary costs!
Corporate and Air B-n-B’s have only exacerbated the problem for current aspiring owners.
The population isn’t rising in the U.S. We are now below the sustainability rate of 2.1 currently at 1.7 and the longer it lasts the harder it will be to replenish. I don’t think it’s mathematically possible now to get it back up with the current population, immigration will have to happen to get the fertility rate back up.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/united-states/fertility-rate
Add to this two things:
But you are correct in one thing, people want to live close to the best jobs and locations so millions of homes becoming available in rural areas will be meaningless to most people. As the population dwindles it will become more concentrated in bigger towns & cities to get goods and services.
This is how I always knew that “everyone is leaving big cities” was a big joke.
You should check on that: “The U.S. population is projected to grow from approximately 331 million in 2020 to about 355 million by 2030, with a slowing growth rate due to declining fertility rates and an aging population. Immigration is expected to play a significant role in sustaining population growth, as the fertility rate remains below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman.”
Source: housinginfo.org
And when those projections were made, what was the assumption on immigrants inflow? Has that projection changed? Didn’t Trump just announce he’s shutting immigration down from 3rd world countries?
https://mishtalk.com/economics/the-cbo-lowers-expected-immigration-birth-rate-and-population-growth/
But even if you’re correct, another plague, war, or massive loss of life through some catastrophe will throw all the projections under the bus and make things worse.
War and pandemics are always in the mix. The likelihood of a hot war is higher with Trump as he has bullied so many nations into banding together to resist his aggression.
That said, the notion of the population going down is false by every metric. Population growth is slowing, but the total population is rising exponentially on a global basis.
Competition for resources is getting fierce!
The fracking boom will be followed by a bust and we better have developed scalable alternatives before that happens.
Nope. I suggest you watch this video when you have time and inform yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2GeVG0XYTc
At 342 and change, right on schedule https://www.census.gov/popclock/
“Aging population” is a temporary perturbation. Total fertility rate and immigration/emigration are the whole ball of wax in the long run.
Future wealth will be even more poorly distributed than today. Fly over country will continue to lose, and fly over is where the greatest resentment and MAGA lives.
Farm country near resort country is starting to hurt and winter is not helping.
The death rate in the USA is expected to surpass the birth rate around 2032, which means population will then be SHRINKING. It’s long past time to worry about how to keep the birth rate up, we need to plan for the coming wackiness in the age profile of the USA’s population. It’s going to be very, very bad.
Like Japan. Or Italy.
Excellent post Mish but few people ever do enough research to understand the true cost of home ownership. Here’s a list of things often overlooked on maintenance. While most can be done by the homeowner, most things eventually cost money.
Interior MaintenanceGeneral Maintenance
Safety and Security
Exterior Maintenance
Seasonal MaintenanceSpring
Summer
Fall
Winter
If this list was somehow mandated as a part of insurance renewal (for example), seeing homeownership as the ‘easy’ road to retiring comfortably would be reconsidered. As a retiree, who has failed to keep up with even a substantial minority of this list, I’m looking at an “as is” sale and seeing a 20% haircut to my ‘realized nest egg’. Condo living seems far more appealing than living in a decaying asset without the resources to provide life support.
Very informative, MPO. But you’ve revealed something else about yourself: You’re an LLM.
I always thought there was something different about you… 😉
Of course it’s from an LLM, do you think I have time to type all of that stuff up? I did look it over and it’s correct since I own rental properties and deal with all of that stuff regularly.
What the LLM didn’t include is the reason why it’s difficult for property values to drop, there is a huge municipal bond market sitting on top of all those property valuations and if those values go down then property taxes go down which would result in trillions of municipal bond defaults.
That’s the next shoe waiting to drop at some point.
Careful on that ladder!
Very informative, especially for me who is on the fence about whether to buy or rent in the final stage of my life. Thank you for this.
Interesting that the home ownership costs are understated AND the difference between home these minimized home ownership costs .. and rent … are bigger than ever.
The utilities are something I wouldn’t count because you generally pay these whether a homeowner or a renter.
If that 8800 in maintenance includes major items … then I agree w/it. A roof can take far more than one year at that average. Same with an HVAC. As for the rest, yes costs are up … but I think some of that number for smaller items is impacted by less DIYers. I spend far less on maintenance because I do much of it myself.
Renters pay all the same costs that homeowners do.
It’s just that the maintenance, taxes and insurance are built into the rent so that renters only pay the utilities + phone/cable costs separately.
As a landlord, I can say that I have many times spent far more on maintenance on a home than the entire rent for the year … so the principal, interest, taxes, insurance, property management, … all came out of my pocket. I couldn’t suddenly double the rent to recoop … I always try to stay $100 to $300/month below market … and the market is the market. I can’t control that. Same way a store cannot choose to double the price of something because of new expenses … unless the market allows for it.
Cable and internet for 125/month? Sign me up!
This is one of the best and easiest examples to make to show people how utterly meaningless nominal GDP comparisons between countries are (and even PPP GDPs are only marginally useful when you consider what goes in the GDP)…
In Italy I pay € 7/month for unlimited 5G internet on my phone, unlimited calls and unlimited texts (which BTW nobody uses anymore since well over 10 years), free hotspot (which never even was a paid option, always included) etc And this is with the top operator, I could pay as little as € 3.99/month.
On top of that, the coverage in Italy (basically total coverage) is not even comparable to that in the US.
At home I pay € 22/month for a 1 Gbps cable (fiber optic) connection with unlimited data and unlimited calls including to mobile numbers. The modem/router (multiple high speed Ethernet connections + WiFi 6 + USB data sharing ports + MESH capability etc) is included.
I am not even going to mention how much I pay in Russia…
I’m always astounded at how much cheaper things generally are in Europe, excepting housing (and then only in certain countries). Thank God most Americans never travel outside the country or there would be a revolution.
Yes, if you come as a tourist…
Wages here are lower and in the specific case of Italy they are pitiful. The average Italian worker, who was doing great up until the ’90s and the country was doing better than Germany (which was called “the sick man of Europe”), France and the UK, has been losing purchasing power since the moment we joined the goddamned Euro while that of the Northwestern Europeans has gone straight up from that exact moment and Germany magically became “the locomotive of Europe”…
I can’t wait to see the EU and the Euro crash and burn. It won’t be long.
A revolution of gravely obese Americans embracing the idea that we could maybe try really socialized medicine one day
A few years ago, Jimmy Dore reported a study saying a majority of USA prefers single payer. Might even have been “majority of R voters”. (It’s definitely not my first choice. But I believe it would probably be an improvement.). But the rich prefer shearing the money train the way it is and pay the uniparty wages.
Don’t cry too much over it because your healthcare system would collapse just like ours are and for the exact same reason: being hogged by the 3rd world invaders that we call “migrants” and “resources” and that you call “undocumented immigrants”.
Over here, those still with some money pay twice: for the “free” one that they don’t use (and whose quality is constantly going down) and for the private one that they end up using when they see the place they have in the waiting list.