According to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, 11.8 million U.S. renter households spend half or more than half of their income on rent, and that number is projected to increase 11 percent by 2025. If national rents continue to rise and wages remain stagnant, rental vacancy rates may increase in America’s largest cities.
In a new study, SmartAsset has uncovered the cities where the highest and lowest proportion of residents spend half or more than half of their income on housing costs.
Cities in coastal states have high housing cost burdens. Many of America’s coastal states are thriving centers of economic activity. Well, big cities in these states are facing upward pressure on housing costs and higher percentages of severely housing cost-burdened households.
The West and Midwest are less housing-cost burdened. Not a single city on our list of the 10 least severely housing cost-burdened cities is located in the Northeast, and only one is on the East Coast.
No city is perfect. Even Sioux Falls, the least severely housing cost-burdened city in our study, is facing cost burdens. Though only 4 percent of households are spending 50 percent or more of their income on housing costs, 10 percent are spending 30-50 percent of household income on housing costs.
For more information from the study, including full methodology and rankings, click here.
