Tag Archives: utility costs

Housing Affordability in NYC

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Jacob Riis, Lodgers in a Crowded Bayard Street Tenement

The Citizens Budget Commission has released Whose Burden Is It Anyway? Housing Affordability in New York City by Household Characteristics. The CBC produced some interesting and counterintuitive policy briefs last year, in which it

examined housing affordability across large U.S. cities to assess New York’s situation in a broader context. Using federal data sources, CBC found that while many New Yorkers face high rents, and the share of households who are “rent burdened” (paying more than 30 percent of income toward rent) grew between 2000 and 2012, the city ranks near the middle among 22 large cities in the share of rent-burdened households. A second analysis revealed New York has the lowest transportation costs among the 22 cities studied due to the large proportion of residents who commute via mass transit. When housing and transportation costs are combined, the city rises from 13th to 3rd place in affordability. The average New York household pays 32 percent of its income towards housing and transportation costs, well within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) affordability guideline of 45 percent. CBC also examined how some “typical” households (as defined by HUD) fared in terms of housing and transportation costs in the same group of cities. In this analysis, low income households in New York also ranked relatively well despite facing serious rent burdens. (1)

The current CBC report looks at NYC rent burdens in greater detail. Key findings include,

  • Forty-two percent of New York City’s renter households are “rent burdened;” that is, adjusting for actual rent paid by each household (“out-of-pocket contract rent” plus utility costs) and food stamp benefits, they pay more than 30 percent of income in rent. „
  • Half of rent burdened households are severely rent burdened, paying more than 50 percent of income in rent. Ninety-four percent of these severely rent-burdened households are low income. „
  • Low-income severely burdened households are disproportionately comprised of singles and seniors. They are also disproportionately households with children and located in the outer boroughs. (2)

CBC adjusts rent to take into account subsidies and familial support. Some will disagree with adjustments of this type, but I think it is a pretty reasonable approach. When combined with the adjustments it made for transportation costs, CBC has produced a textured portrait of the state of housing affordability in NYC.

Nation of Renters

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NYU’s Furman Center and Capital One have produced an interesting graphic, Renting in America’s Largest Cities. The graphic highlights the growing trend of renting in urban communities, but also the increasing expense of doing so. The press release about this study provides some highlights:

  • In 2006, the majority of the population in just five of the largest 11 U.S. cities lived in rental housing; in 2013, that number increased to nine.
  • As demand for rental housing grew faster than available supply, rental vacancy rates declined in all but two of the 11 cities, making it harder to find units for rent.
  • Rents outpaced inflation in almost all of the 11 cities. Rents Increased most in DC, with a 21 percent increase in inflation-adjusted median gross rent, and least in Houston, where rents were stable.
  • In all 11 cities, an overwhelming majority of low-income renters were severely rent-burdened, facing rents and utility costs equal to at least half of their income.
  • Even In the most affordable cities in the study, low-income renters could afford no more than 11 percent of recently available units.
  • In five major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Miami, moderate-Income renters could afford less than a third of recently available units in 2013.

Rental housing clearly has an important role to play in providing stable homes for American households, particularly in big cities. While rental housing has been the stepchild of federal housing policy for far too long, it is good that it is finally get some attention and resources.

I look forward to the Furman Center’s follow-up report, which will provide more detail than the graphic does. I am particularly curious about whether the researchers have addressed the difference between housing affordability and location affordability in the longer study. I would guess that the relative affordability of the cities in this study is greatly impacted by households’ transportation costs.